The reign of Akhenaten, Tutankhamun’s father, had been a turbulent and revolutionary one, and it left in its aftermath, opportunities for others to rise to power, especially during the reign of the young boy-king. Tutankhamun was succeeded by his vizier, Ay, whom some see as a cunning and devious exploiter. Ay may have been Tutankhamun’s great uncle and was not young when he came to the throne. He reigned for just four years (1327–23 BC) and was succeeded by Horemheb, a former military general who instigated a wave of reforms, overturning the changes initiated by Akhenaten. Just who Horemheb was, and how he rose to such power, has remained something of a mystery, though it is believed his wife may have been the sister of Queen Nefertiti, the principal wife of Akhenaten.
Anton Gill’s background has been in stage and radio drama, including working at times on Waggoner’s Walk and The Archers. His first book, Martin Allen is Missing (1984), was a study of missing children in London and he has written on such diverse subjects as croquet, travels in Eastern Europe and the survivors of the German concentration camps. He has also written a series of novels featuring Huy, who was originally a young scribe in the administration of Akhenaten. After Akhenaten’s death and disgrace, Huy and his colleagues were dismissed from their services and Huy was forced to earn a living as a private investigator, working unofficially for the crown. Only three novels have been published in England, City of the Horizon (1991), City of Dreams (1993) and City of the Dead (1994). Three further titles, City of Lies, City of Desire and City of the Sea have so far only been published in mainland Europe.
Huy survives the reigns of Tutankhamun and Ay and the following story is set early in the reign of Horemheb. Huy is in his early forties, a good age for the time but not necessarily old.
Although there was still something of the old disdain in the face, the agony in which he had died had twisted his mouth in such a way as to make Sonebi seem to plead – an expression which would have been unthinkable in life.
The body, too, was contorted, though it was not maimed: it was whole. The Khaibit could enter the Boat of Night without being forced to wander the world looking for any part that was lacking. Looking down at him, the scribe Huy wondered if the beauticians in the royal Per-nefer hall would be able to restore his dignity as they prepared him for the Fields of Aarru.
One thing was certain: few would miss Sonebi. In his professional life, he had done much to make the reign of the Pharaoh secure; the by-product of that was husbands exiled or dead; families bereft.
“When?” he asked the man standing next to him. Huy was short and, despite advancing years, muscular, though the paunch which was the result of his inability to resist red beer, Dakhla wine, and fig liquor gave the lie to that. (It was getting worse. He would have to do something about it.) Neferhotep, by contrast, though not much younger than Huy, was tall and slim, elegant in a spotless white kilt, his head and body immaculately shaved, new palm-leaf sandals on his feet.
“His Chief Wife sent for me before dawn.”
“He died at home?”
“Yes.”
They were standing by a cedar-wood bier in the royal Ibu, the first of the four Houses of the Preparation of the Dead, where the Sahu of Sonebi had been brought. It was now towards mid-morning and, despite the steady breeze from the north wind that blew through the hall, the heat was rising. Neferhotep’s head shone. They were alone and in the silence both of them felt Sonebi’s Ba hovering, not yet called to the Fields of Aarru, yet unable to communicate with them. It was preparing itself for the Judgment and the Boat of Night. The death of Sonebi no longer interested it. It was one of the eight parts that had made him a man. Now they were gone in their separate directions.
Nevertheless for a moment they listened.
“What have the doctors said?”
Neferhotep spread his hands, and Huy glanced from the body, stiff as a carved and painted statue, to the face of the Leader of the Black Medjays, trying to catch his eye, to read or at least glimpse what was in his heart. But Neferhotep’s own eyes remained on the grinning dead face of his former colleague.
Huy persisted. “May I talk to them?”
“I have made all necessary inquiries,” said Neferhotep, turning now to Huy. He was tired. He had been up since before dawn. It was cool, even cold, at night, for it was Shemu, the dry season, the quiet spring after the harvest. From Neferhotep came the scent of dom-palm oil, already stale.
“If I am to help,” Huy began, restraining irritation.
“I will tell you what they told me, but you are here to assist, not lead.”
“I can tell no more from this husk.” Huy gestured towards the naked man on the bier, already gaunt and yellow, the always sharp features sharper, robbing them of the cruel good looks that had existed in life. Soon, by midday, Sonebi would be disembowelled, his brain plucked from the skull using wires on hooks thrust through the nostrils, and laid in a wooden tub and covered with natron salt, to draw out the fluids in the Khat, the first step in preparing the Sahu for eternity.
Huy would not see Sonebi again. There wasn’t a mark on the body; there was only the expression and the racked body to go by. Now the look on the face seemed less beseeching than despairing.
“The doctors think poison,” said Neferhotep.
“Yes.”
Neferhotep was going to give as little information as possible. He did not want Huy to succeed. He did not want Huy to be there any more than Huy wanted to be there himself. Huy looked at his former pupil, and wondered how such a man could have risen so high. Perhaps he had taught him too well, though he had deliberately kept some of the arts of the problem-solver to himself. He had always recognized Neferhotep’s ambition and realized that it needed a curb. But if he had trained the man better, Horemheb would not have sent for Huy so soon.
He had not seen the Pharaoh personally for a long time. It was a year at least since Horemheb had taken him from the dreary post in the Archives to which he had been consigned and given him the nebulous position of problem-solver, to be called upon whenever there was need of him. The rest of the time he read and drank, fighting the boredom of his heart, keeping his Khou alive. Horemheb would not allow him to do any other work, and Huy had begun to long for the day when he would be released from the prison his own accidental talent had landed him in. He had no idea how to escape it.
The Black Medjay who had summoned him that morning had arrived at his house as the Sun was rising and taken him to Police Headquarters where Neferhotep kept him waiting just long enough to remind him of his subordinate position. Then they had come here.
“It is a problem I can manage,” said Neferhotep. “But in the case of so high an official, no effort must be spared.”
Huy said nothing.
“We had better go back. If you have seen all you want.”
Huy spread his hands. Despite his reluctance to share what he knew, there was something after all new in Neferhotep’s manner – something grudging, as if he were acting against his better judgment. What precisely this was due to, Huy could not guess.
The offices of the Black Medjays were in a wing of Police Headquarters, well-located in the North Quarter of the Palace of the Southern Capital, commanding a vista of the River as it flowed, sluggishly at this season, on its long journey towards the Great Green sea. The elite corps were resented by the ordinary Medjay police, who envied their favoured quarters and regarded them, correctly, as Horemheb’s private troop and bodyguard; but Neferhotep was an investigator, and he had responsibility for whatever serious crimes might have a bearing on state security.
King Horemheb had inherited a country in tatters, its northern borders fractured and threatened. A rule as hard as metal was what was needed to steady the Black Land. Huy did not like being linked with this rule, though he knew that Horemheb was as necessary as bitter medicine to a sick man. Huy would have preferred to keep himself to himself. He had seen enough in his life to want to stand apart. He had read somewhere that of every hundred men, ninety were cattle, nine organizers and one wise enough to keep himself to himself. He didn’t know if he belonged to the last group. He’d never wholly succeeded in belonging to it.
Neferhotep led Huy into his room and sat at a table piled neatly at one end with rolled documents. Under the window a scribe sat cross-legged, his board on his lap and his palette with its red and black inks and his brushes on a broad low stool at his side. Neferhotep’s look told him to get up and leave. Once he had done so, the leader of the Black Medjays unwound a fraction, and poured wine into two ordinary beakers. Huy noted this, and that Neferhotep poured the wine himself. The man hadn’t let his position go to his head. That was good: but it showed that he was not a fool. Huy should not underestimate him.
There was a bowl of expensive persea fruit on the table. Huy was not offered one.
“It’s Kharga wine.”
“Good.”
“You prefer Dakhla, as I remember.”
Huy said nothing. He knew he would not be asked to sit, but he sat anyway, taking the beaker from the table as he did so. He waited.
“Poison,” Neferhotep began. “They could tell that from the way the body was contorted, and the twisting of the face. But it was not sudden.”
“How much has the Chief Wife told you?”
“Senen is very distressed. She told me he came back to his house later than usual. He had visited his mother on the way. He was tired and did not eat. Soon afterwards he went to his room and did not ask her to join him. She heard him cry out in the night and went to him. There was just time for him to take her hand.”
“And the room servants?”
“It was not his custom to have servants in his bedroom.”
Huy frowned. If Horemheb had known that he would have been furious at the lax security. And yet Sonebi’s house was like a fortress.
Neferhotep had fallen silent, holding his beaker in front of him with both hands as it stood on the table in front of him. He had not touched the wine. He was looking inside himself.
“I do not know why Djeserkheprure Horemheb felt it necessary to summon you immediately,” he said at last. He raised his eyes to meet Huy’s. “It seems you still have great merit in his eyes. Well, I can do nothing about that.”
Huy did not know how to answer.
“What is it I am to do?” he said simply.
Neferhotep spread his hands and rose, going to the window and looking out at the opaque River. Outside, the Sun was already high. Few people moved in the maze of narrow streets that spread out from below the walls of the great building. Three falcon ships of the king’s navy made their slow way north, their rowers torpid under awnings. There was no other traffic. Beyond the city the farms of the Black Land, their soil now red, straggled along the River’s eastern banks. The view to the west, where the royal cemeteries, the Great Place and the Place of Beauty, lay, was blocked by an angle of the outer wall.
“There are no doctors to interview,” he said at last, not turning. “Senen sent two body-servants straight to me and two more to Sonebi’s personal physician.”
Huy understood why. One servant could have gone astray, made contact with spies from the north. Two meant that they could watch each other.
“They were trusted servants,” continued Neferhotep. “Senen will miss them; but the times are dark.”
Huy knew what that meant too, and that the other servants of Senen’s household would be told that their fellows had been taken into the king’s service. Whether they believed it or not was their affair. In any case they could do no more about it than Senen herself.
“And the physician?” he asked.
“He has the ear of Horemheb. He recognized how Sonebi died and told me. He is safe. But no one else must speak to him. He is being watched, of course.”
Huy was not surprised. The death of Horemheb’s Chief Interrogator at a time when the Black Country’s northern borders were broached was something which would have to be investigated discreetly and fast. The Southern Capital would be quietly sealed. But there was no work here involving many of the Pharaoh’s ordinary police officers, and the death itself would be kept secret until a successor was appointed, and Sonebi no longer mattered.
Huy reflected that the situation also explained why Horemheb had turned to him: he had not been active for a long time; he had always looked like one of the stevedores who hung around the beerhouses at the quays between jobs. Horemheb knew he was a good problem-solver; but perhaps it was as much for his ability to go unnoticed as for any other that he had been chosen. Perhaps he was one of the cattle after all.
Huy drank some of his wine. It was still cool from the jar, and light.
“What must I do?” he said again.
Neferhotep turned from the window and looked at him. It was clear that Huy’s tactical humility did not fool him.
“You are my implement in this, Huy,” he said, calling him by his name without ceremony. “You will work alone. If you can find an answer to the question you will be rewarded. We are looking for agents of the north.”
“Whom can I talk to?”
“Start with Senen. Be cautious. Tidy yourself up. Get some clean clothes. A white kilt. And discard your wig. Shave your head. You can pass for a priest-administrator.” Neferhotep came over to him and Huy rose. Neferhotep stood close. “We will not meet again soon. I have been told to leave you alone. You have five days before a report is required. By then your work must be complete. Do not fail. Do not disappoint me.” He paused, looking at Huy, and for a moment it seemed that they were pupil and teacher again. When he spoke it was reluctantly.
“The king has ordered that you are to have full power. No one is above your suspicion. No one’s word will stand against yours. Now go.”
Huy made his way back to his house near the docks, keeping to the shady sides of the streets and once side-stepping a guard-ape, made angry by the hot Sun and snapping at the end of the leash which anchored it to its stall in a market in one of the small squares he crossed. Once home he washed, dutifully shaved his head, and changed. He wondered what kind of punishments Sonebi had meted out. Greater than the common ones for criminals: none of the men who begged in the Southern Quarter, their ears or their noses cut off, would have been sentenced through him, nor would those who bore the marks of the five open wounds. Few of either sort lived long anyway; the Sun and the flies saw to that. Blinding, impaling, exile: they were the punishments of the great. Horemheb used his power judiciously but without hesitation in order to keep it. Those who worked against him were quickly turned into object lessons for the rest. Sonebi had been good at his job: as useful to his king as an army in the field. And he would have made enemies.
Huy did not relish his task.
The house was a large one, facing north, in its own gardens behind high walls on three sides, while the fourth shared a wall with the palace itself. It was late afternoon, the Sun entering the final hours of the Seqtet Boat, when Huy arrived there, admitted by a body-servant to an arcaded courtyard where a small artificial waterfall ran into a pond filled with pale fish which swam aimlessly and lazily, safe from the attack of white egrets because another servant sat at the pool’s edge, constantly on guard.
He didn’t have to wait long. Wearing a loose white pleated dress and a wig ritually disarrayed in mourning, a tall woman came towards him unattended. Her long fingers played with a golden ankh suspended from a length of turquoise beads that she held. She wore no other jewellery. Her eyes were so dark it was hard to distinguish the pupils. But they were far from expressionless. They were sad and patient. She had seen perhaps 30 Seasons of the Flood.
“I am Senen.”
“I am Huy the scribe.”
She motioned him to sit on a bench by the pool and placed herself next to him, though there were chairs nearby. Unbidden, a servant appeared with a dish of dates and a silver ewer of wine. Huy noted the expensive metal: no gold here, but silver: a mark of real wealth.
“I am sorry –” Huy began, but she interrupted him.
“You are sorry to disturb me with questions so soon after my husband’s death. I accept that the circumstances must be resolved as soon as possible. But I can tell you no more than I have already told Neferhotep.”
“I know that he ate nothing when he came home. Did he drink anything?”
She hesitated for a moment. “Not in my presence.”
“Did the servants take anything to him in his room?”
“I am not aware that anyone did.” Her manner was courteous, yet her thoughts were elsewhere. “He may have eaten at his mother’s house. He sometimes did.”
“Did he see her often?”
“He was devoted to her. He visited her frequently.”
The dense silences between each exchange weighed heavily on Huy, and beyond them only the gentle plashing of the waterfall relieved the quiet of the house. Huy imagined the great empty rooms beyond the courtyard. It was, after all, a house in mourning. The dates and the wine remained untouched by either of them. Senen had not seemed to notice them. She was extending hospitality with automatic politeness, but she was – what? Not bored. Resigned? Her features were strong and regular, but immobile: Huy could read little for certain in her face, which was more handsome than beautiful, the chin strong, the mouth wide. How much did she know about her husband’s work? About what it involved?
“He was poisoned,” said Huy, wondering as he spoke if he should have let her know.
But she was unsurprised. “He had enemies. He was aware of the risks he ran, despite the security we live under. He said that it was as well that he had no children. His enemies might have got at him through them.”
This seemed to Huy unlikely – an excuse. But he said nothing. He noticed that her voice had faltered slightly. To have no children was a disgrace in the Black Land, and now Senen was close to an age when her last chance would be gone.
“When we met he was a junior priest-administrator. But he was ambitious. When Horemheb ascended the Golden Chair, he saw his chance,” she continued. Huy wondered whether this information was some form of apology for having been married to the Chief Interrogator. Huy recalled all the rumours surrounding Sonebi; that he liked to take an active part in the torture. Not that crude violence had ever been mentioned in connection with his name; though hearsay had credited him with one refinement in the interrogation procedure: he would deprive prisoners of water for five days, and then give them vinegar. Had she known anything about what he did when he was not in his house?
“I think his work kept you apart. I know his reputation for hard work,” Huy said.
For the first time a look of irony crossed her face, though it was so fleeting that he wasn’t sure he had caught it.
“In the past two years he has been less frequently at home.” She looked at him. “I thought you were here to ask questions. If you think our private life concerns you, ask questions.”
Huy felt increasingly awkward. There were questions he wanted to ask but could not yet bring himself to: had she been happy? What did she do with her time? Had she wanted children?
“Is there anything?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Little enough. His work took up most of his time.”
She was silent for a long moment, and then added: “He had a mistress. You might as well learn that from me.”
Huy wondered what she meant by such an abrupt confidence. The fact alone that Sonebi had had a mistress did not surprise him. It was not unusual. In a household like Sonebi’s, the junior wives fulfilled the role of housekeepers and senior servants. He would have chosen a mistress of similar standing to his chief wife. And he would have known how to be discreet. Great families were like the houses they lived in: surrounded by high walls to contain secrets.
“Her name is Meryt.”
“Did you tell Neferhotep this?”
“No. He was concerned with the immediate circumstances. But I knew there would be more questions. I simply wish to end this so that I may mourn in peace.”
“Who is Meryt?”
“The daughter of Pashed, my husband’s physician.”
“Does Pashed know?” asked Huy, as his heart acknowledged this information.
“Pashed is not a friend. He is close to my husband’s family.”
Huy sat for a moment without speaking. In the silence, he became aware of the servant guarding the fish, as he discreetly stretched his limbs.
“It is of no importance,” said Senen. He felt her retreating from him. He was not at ease with her, yet her sadness embraced him. There was something else that he could not quite identify.
“You have not drunk your wine,” she said.
“Nor you yours.”
“It does not matter.” What she said then surprised him. “You are troubled that I am composed about this. I know what my husband’s work was. I know what compromises he made to hold power. I know there were many things about him that earned hatred. But whatever you discover, believe this: I loved him.”
Huy realized that for the first time there was absolute truth in her voice.
Darkness fell quickly in the Black Land, and the city was silent as Huy made his dusty way home. He avoided the narrow paved roads which divided the city into its quarters, where there would still be people; instead he used the back alleys which he knew better than the lines on his palms. He was not followed.
Soon after the arrival of the next day’s Sun in the Matet Boat, Huy sat in another, less opulent courtyard, belonging to a house outside the vast bounds of the palace. It was a pleasant place, the garden well tended and planted with lotus and palm. Opposite him, the spare old woman – she had seen 60 Seasons of the Flood – leant forwards in her chair. Next to her was another woman, 20 years younger, erect as an egret and as slim and white, though dark lines were incised about her mouth and wrinkled the make up around her eyes. She sat upright and neither her back nor her arms touched her chair. Behind them servants stood, and by them crouched a scribe with his palette and brushes, ready to record what was said. The ritual hospitality had been offered. It was time to begin.
“You have seen my daughter-in-law?” asked the older woman, her mouth tight.
“Yes.”
“Before seeing me.”
Huy inclined his head. “She is the Chief Wife.”
“Yes.”
Huy looked at Herya. Sonebi’s mother was in the grip, not of grief, but anger. Her body was tense and her eyes keen. It was not long since her own husband had died and she was now in double mourning. Huy had no respect for the old aristocracy whose power had been restored since the death of the great Pharaoh, Akhenaten, but their haughty presence still unsettled him. He knew he would have to pick his way carefully, and had not counted on being joined at the interview by Sonebi’s sister, Bakmut. Both women were eager to talk.
“My mother is aware that you have observed the forms,” the thin woman said.
“I will be as brief as I can,” Huy began cautiously.
“You must not trust Senen. She will do all she can to keep what she has gained through marriage,” said Herya immediately. “It is not surprising. Yet she could not in the five Seasons of the Flood that she lived with my son produce one child, not even a girl.”
She stopped talking as abruptly as she had started. Huy looked at his feet. He was sitting in the Sun and the hair on his scalp, beginning to grow again, itched. He ran a furtive hand over his head.
“That is why she was jealous,” said Bakmut. “It is understandable. But it was hard when he felt he could only visit his family in secret – and so soon after our father’s death, when our mother needed comfort.”
“He came to you on the night of his own death,” said Huy.
The women looked at each other before they looked at Huy, and the scribe sitting nearby suspended his brush.
“Yes.”
“Did he eat with you?”
“He ate, yes,” said Herya.
“What?”
“Do you usually speak so directly?” she countered imperiously.
“I represent the king in this,” Huy said, not to be faced down, and wondering why the old woman should take this tack now.
“He did not dine with us. But he took some duck and onions, and wheat bread, and some wine,” said Bakmut. “I served him myself. That is unusual; but he preferred to be quite alone with us when he could.”
“He loved us,” said Herya. “He should have stayed with us.”
“Why should I not trust Senen?” asked Huy, noticing that the scribe had begun to record the conversation again.
“She wanted to rise. She married him to rise. It has brought her a house in the palace compound,” said Herya. “I do not know what you are doing here. I shall complain to Neferhotep. You should be talking to that woman, not prodding here with your dirty fingers, ignoring our grief.” The old woman’s face was hard and bitter. Jealousy would colour everything she said, and Huy saw no reason to prolong the conversation. The scribe had already put down his brush again.
Huy had heard enough, and took his leave. Bakmut, to his surprise, accompanied him to the gate.
“My mother is not herself,” she apologized. “The deaths of a husband and a son are hard for her to bear.”
“You have suffered the same loss.”
“Almost the same. I loved neither man as much as she did.” She laid a hand on Huy’s arm with a quick, birdlike movement, but with the gesture she smiled. It was an awkward smile, but there was no doubt in Huy’s heart that this was an attempt to charm him. And the smile for a moment transformed her face. Huy could see that she had once been beautiful.
“Who might have killed your brother?”
“I do not think his marriage was a happy one,” she answered carefully, not looking at him.
“The palace fears he was killed by agents of the north. There will be war with King Suppiluliumas soon.”
“Then you are looking in the wrong place here.”
“Do you know Senen?”
“Of course.”
“But well?”
“No. We have met rarely. My mother never liked her, and we both hoped Sonebi would stay with us always. We are a close family. Senen’s father was a priest.”
Huy noted the snobbery in her voice. Sonebi should have married an aristocrat. But his career had not been harmed by his choice.
“Why do you think the marriage was unhappy?” he asked.
“It was barren. I was sorry for her, too, but it would have been better for them to part.”
Huy looked into his heart before asking his next question. “Do you know Meryt, the daughter of Pashed?”
Bakmut’s eyes flashed. “She was Sonebi’s mistress.”
“Did he speak of her?”
She hesitated before replying. “Sonebi said he could not decide between her and Senen. I do not blame him for that. They were alike. They wanted to use him. But his proper place was here, with us. Now at least he will go to the Fields of Aarru and live in peace.”
Hearing the vehemence in her voice, Huy looked at the thin woman, but it was already too late to read her face. She had withdrawn into herself again. The face itself was dry and cold, and the lines that ran from her nose to the corners of her mouth were deeper now than they had appeared before. Her make-up was clumsily, uncaringly applied. Her eyebrows were unplucked; coarse wisps of hair spiralled from them, and one or two more emerged from her nostrils. She had taken her hand away and now stood stiffly by the gate, arms folded across her narrow breast. Remembering Sonebi in death, Huy now imagined how he might have been in life.
The Sun was halfway to its zenith when Huy took his leave. He drew his shawl over his head to protect it. The red earth found its way into his sandals and he had to shake his feet to free them of it. Despite the growing heat he wandered aimlessly for a while. He thought hard about Sonebi and the lack of children. He turned the envy and jealousy of the mother and sister over in his heart. Was their possessiveness as straightforward as it seemed? The old aristocracy had little time for Horemheb, a parvenu who had seized the throne when his predecessor had died without an heir, taking to wife a sister of Akhenaten’s Great Wife, Nefertiti. Queen Nezemmut, once Horemheb had persuaded her to marry him, legitimized his claim to the Golden Chair; but there were those who would like to see him fall among the old families. The problem was how to get to them and preserve the discretion imposed on him. And there was another problem: why kill Sonebi? The walls of secrecy that secured the palace were high; and if nothing was lost to the agents of the north – something which the Pharaoh’s spies searching through Sonebi’s offices would soon establish – Sonebi could go to the crocodiles in peace. He was an implement. No one would miss him, as long as policy was secure. His function was important but he himself was not. As an official he could be replaced. He had been efficient, but there were plenty of efficient administrators eager for advancement in the palace. His removal would inconvenience Horemheb, but do no serious damage otherwise. The only true motivation for such an action was revenge; and what relative, lover or friend of one of Sonebi’s victims could ever hope to get close enough to him to destroy him?
Huy called Meryt into his heart, trying to imagine what she must be like. Often men’s mistresses were like their wives. Huy had been married twice; but he had never had a mistress. He thought of the lies that would become routine, the excitements that would become dull, the hopes that would become blunted with time. Senen knew about Meryt; so did Sonebi’s mother and sister: were they the others to whom Senen had referred? Did anyone else know? It seemed unlikely that it would be common knowledge, and yet in a world as small as that within the encircling walls of the palace it was possible. But Huy rejected the idea: Sonebi would not have been a man to allow weaknesses in the fortifications of his life.
The question was how to see Meryt. Senen knew she had been her dead husband’s mistress: but was Meryt aware of that? Huy did not know where Meryt lived; but that was something he could leave to Neferhotep. Within the palace’s network of spies there were men who knew much about everyone who lived in the Southern Capital, and Huy’s former student had access to them.
He made his way back to the small house near the quays where he had lived since his return from the City of the Sea two Seasons of the Flood earlier. He unpegged the lock and walked through the narrow living room to the dark kitchen beyond, where he drew a beaker of red beer from the urn. It was long since he had kept even one body-servant. He considered his next move: could he trust Neferhotep? Sitting alone in the cool of his house Huy knew that if he applied to Neferhotep for help it would be delayed. It was in his student’s interest that Huy should fail. He had been given five days. He partly wanted to fail, in the hope that Horemheb would think him less acute than he had been and let him go; but his heart urged him to succeed, because a direction was emerging, and he knew he had to follow it.
Suddenly he was alert. In the gloom of the house behind him he had heard a noise, so slight that it might have been nothing more than a mouse. He rose cautiously, aware of the noise he himself was making, and made his way back towards the kitchen. The door that led into the yard was ajar and he could see the brush he used to sweep it standing in the corner where the high white walls met. He reached for his knife but the person at his back was quicker. An arm was flung round his head, covering his eyes, and another covered his mouth. He was lifted off his feet and carried, unable to see or breathe, through the house towards his front door. It was the time of day when the Sun was at its height: only the scarab beetles would be abroad. He lashed out and heard a stool fall and be kicked aside. He tried to open his mouth to bite but the salt-tasting arm was clamped too tightly round his face. Outside he was released but there were others there. Someone held his neck firmly where the great artery was. Before he passed out, he saw a heavily-curtained litter, carried by two men, approaching.
When he awoke, Huy was lying on an ornate bed in a large room. His head was clear and his heart felt no grogginess from what had gone before. Only he had no idea of what time of day it was, nor even whether it was the same day. The dim light that came through the windows set high in the wall was that of the late hours of the Seqtet Boat. The room contained little furniture, but the paintings on the walls suggested a place of wealth. A man perhaps ten years older than Huy sat on a chair by the bed, regarding him.
“There is water for you, and honeycomb,” he said. “If you wish.”
Huy swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat upright.
“I am Pashed,” said the man.
Huy looked at him. “You could have sent a servant. I would have come.”
“It was difficult. You have been told not to speak to me. I am being watched. You are not.”
Huy let the man’s illusion pass. He knew that Neferhotep, in forbidding him to speak to the doctor, had tried to exercise power that he did not have. It had grated with him severely to have to pass on Horemheb’s carte blanche to Huy.
“How do you know?” asked Huy.
Pashed spread his hands. “The palace trusts you, they do not want any attention drawn to you; and Neferhotep hopes in his heart that you will fail. It is an irresistible combination.”
“And you?”
“I am favoured; but Horemheb trusts no one. Anyone close to Sonebi, however obliquely, is being watched.”
“Then what of the men who brought me here?”
“Cousins. Loyal cousins. I cannot guarantee that they were not seen, but I am sure enough to take this risk. The house you are in belongs to them, not me.” Pashed stood up and walked to the door. “The evening air will do you good. And walking will clear your heart further. I regret that you were handled roughly. I had no guarantee that you would come. I did not want you to be able to identify this place. I am still uncertain that I can trust you.”
“Why take the risk?”
Pashed did not answer immediately. He led Huy into a long gallery, open on one side, that ran along the house on an upper floor. The view to the north was similar to that from Neferhotep’s office, except that here one could see across the River to the west bank. The vast red orb of the Sun seemed to rest on the jagged red clifftops there.
“You did not know Sonebi,” said Pashed.
“No.”
“He was a man whose desires would not let him rest. He would do anything to rise, take any job the king gave him and do it well. But he had no ideas of his own. He was good at climbing ladders to platforms, but once he’d arrived on them, he had to be told what to do. The kind of man Horemheb favours.”
“You should not tell me this.”
“In the end, Huy, no one would take your word against mine. That must answer your question about risk.”
Huy remained silent. Pashed was a man used to being in command. It was not up to Huy to disabuse him. Pashed was taller and more heavily built than Huy, though the fine linen kilt and shawl edged with gold that he wore hid a frame that was more muscular than fat. A heavy necklace of turquoise and gold hung round his neck, a golden Eye of Horus suspended from it. The make-up around his eyes was immaculate, even at this late hour of the day, but his eyes themselves suggested weariness, deep lines cut his face from nose to mouth and across his forehead. Huy could not read his thoughts, but he wondered if Pashed had ever doubted his own invulnerability.
Pashed leaned on the low wall of the gallery’s open side, grasping it with strong brown hands, and breathed the warm, dusty air of the evening, smelling the smell of distant spices which you could never escape in the Southern Capital.
Huy wondered if the doctor knew about his daughter’s affair.
“Sonebi was successful not just because he was ambitious, but because he was charming,” said Pashed. “It was hard for me to be healer to a man whose victims I had seen. It was harder to understand how such a cultivated shell could harbour such cruelty. But the sophistication, as I came to learn, was a veneer. I could see through it, but I could not teach others to. If people do not wish to be persuaded, they cannot be.”
“Sonebi was obeying orders. He kept the Black Land secure for Horemheb.”
Pashed spread his hand impatiently. “Already there is talk of his successor. There were plans for such a contingency before he died. A post like that cannot be left vacant for a moment under a king like Horemheb. The water will soon close over his head and your investigation will not matter at all.” He paused, but when he spoke again it was with intensity. “Sonebi enjoyed what he did. The physical cruelty he left to others, but he loved to manipulate – to turn one suspect against another, to make them so unsure even of themselves that confession and death came as a relief from doubt. And he would promise a man a soft death, but give him a hard one.”
Huy did not answer at once. All this may have been true, but he was still interested to see how anyone could have got close enough to kill the man. Something else interested him: Pashed seemed like a man eager to unburden himself. Was he just speaking to Huy because he thought it could go no further? He had gone to great lengths just to have this conversation. Huy would have interviewed him anyway, but he was not to know that.
“Someone like Sonebi is always open to murder,” said Huy at last. “However well he is guarded. The work is the enemy, not the man who does it.”
Pashed inclined his head.
“Why did you want to see me?”
“To tell you how he was killed.”
“Neferhotep has already told me. You told him,” said Huy.
Pashed ignored him. “No one close to Sonebi knew what he was like. To his family, to all who knew him privately, he was a civil servant, like any other, but in a delicate and important job. The way he duped people became intolerable to me.” Was it Huy’s imagination, or did Pashed stumble over his last words?
“When it affected those you loved?”
The doctor looked away towards the River. “I do not know what you are speaking of,” he said at last, but his look was shrewd. “I gave Neferhotep no details. It was scorpion’s venom in wine, but with a certain herb in it too. It had to be something that ensured he would feel something of the pain he had caused.”
Huy thought of the old saying, that when you enter politics you leave conscience at the door. Hadn’t this man compromised himself too? Hadn’t he done so himself?
He waited in the silence to see what else Pashed would say.
“I am growing old. Meryt’s mother was my Chief Wife and she is dead. I have no son.”
“You took a great risk.”
“The work that had to be done is done.”
Huy did not speak. Pashed would not help his daughter by this confession. If he took the information he had just received to Neferhotep, Pashed’s family would be disgraced and Meryt would inherit nothing. But Pashed believed that Huy’s word could not stand against his own. Nevertheless Huy was not satisfied. Beyond this curious confession, what was there that was made of stone? If Pashed had killed Sonebi, how had he done it?
“Why have you told me?” he asked.
“Because I know of your tenacity,” replied the physician simply. “There is no more to know, and there is no need for you to follow paths that lead nowhere.”
Huy allowed his eyes and mouth to be bound and his ears to be blocked with wax before they took him from the house. He had no choice, and he did not see the men who took him, but he was resigned. In the litter that carried him away he felt no panic. He was strangely relaxed. He knew this came from him alone: he had eaten and drunk nothing in Pashed’s company so he could have taken no concealed drug. He was detached from himself. His heart prompted that nothing could prevent them from killing him; but he did not think they would: Pashed was not a man to kill without need, and believed Huy presented no threat to him.
The route they followed was long, and when the litter stopped and he descended one of the men sat him on the ground and told him to wait. Then there was nothing, though one of the earplugs had worked loose and he could hear them moving away. When all was silent he removed the plugs and the blindfold. It was dark, but he could see that they had left him outside the walls of the city, though not so far that he could not reach them in a short time. It was not good to be outside the walls at night. He hurried towards the nearest gate, which was still open. It was not as late as he had feared.
He made his way home. Someone had pegged both his front and back doors locked. Inside, there was the usual untidiness, but nothing had been disturbed or taken. He lit a lamp and drew a book towards him, unrolling it to where he had left a marker. There was nothing else to do that evening, and he needed to distract his heart. Reading did not work. Soon he set the book aside and sat staring at the lamplight. And it was not until he was sure that he knew how Sonebi had met his end that he grew tired. There were still questions, but they were few, and he knew whom to ask them of.
In the end he slept.
He left it until late the following day before he set off for Sonebi’s house again. He had sent no message ahead, but Senen showed no surprise when she saw him. She greeted him in the courtyard of her house, as before. She wore another white dress, and the same jewellery. She looked at him for some time before she spoke.
“You know,” she said.
“Yes.” He paused. The guardian of the fish crouched by the pool. “Send him away.”
She did so.
“What is to be done?” she asked when he had gone.
“Is Meryt here?”
“Yes.”
“Which of you did it?”
“Meryt took the poison from her father’s room. She knew what was needed. But we did not know how much pain it would cause.” Huy knew she did not mean to cry, but now she did, silently.
“No. He prepared the poison specially. He knew whom it was for. He gave it to Meryt. That was Pashed’s revenge. For his daughter, and for all Sonebi’s victims.”
Senen looked away, towards the interior of the house. From its shadows a woman emerged, and as she approached Huy could see that she and Senen might have been sisters, though Meryt was perhaps ten years younger than her rival, and the set of her mouth was stronger. They took each other’s hands. “I gave it to him in wine when he came home,” Senen continued. “Meryt was already here. We watched him die together. He made no noise. It was too late to help him. We could do nothing about the pain.”
Huy turned to Meryt. “Senen has tried to protect your father. There is no need. He tried to protect you. That is how I know.”
The women exchanged glances. “It was too much for either of us to bear any more,” said Meryt, with defiance in her voice. “Sonebi toyed with us. He wanted neither of us, but he enjoyed the game. And we became so tired of it; but it did not release us from love.” She paused. “My father knew. I asked him to give me something that would take Sonebi from us without pain.” Her heart was drained. She spoke the last words without expression.
“If we could count the time again,” Senen said, “we would not do it. But for five Seasons of the Flood we were tortured. The thorn had to be drawn out at last. It is not something you can live with forever.”
“But now you must,” said Huy.
He imagined the lives they now faced, and the fear they would be in. And there were no children. Sonebi would never be blamed for that – only the women. No one would take Senen as a wife again; and Meryt would be condemned by Sonebi’s mother as soon as she attempted to marry. All they had done was remove somebody loathsome to the Boat of Night. What would happen when Sonebi’s heart was weighed in the Hall of Truth? Would Ammit seize him in his teeth? Would Shesmu throw him into the lakes of Fire?
Whatever happened, these women would have punishment enough. Huy would not add to it.
They stood in silence as the waterfall pattered. A fish jumped in the pond. Senen watched it with a look of relief. Everything had been told, and it had taken so little time.
“What will you do now?” Meryt asked Huy.
“Nothing,” he said.
The office of the Black Medjays was empty on the evening that Neferhotep finally sent for the scribe. Huy had delivered a report of sorts, and knew that between its reception and this summons it would have been read and considered by Horemheb as well. He expected Neferhotep to be furious, since the Leader of the Black Medjays would have been rebuked because of Huy’s failure. Neferhotep’s manner was curt, though Huy was not surprised to detect a note of triumph hidden in it.
“This is disappointing,” he said.
“Yes.”
“It is as well that no activity has been detected among the forces of the north. We are at least satisfied that they had nothing to do with it. But you can take no credit for that.”
“No,” said Huy.
“Nevertheless, it is a mess,” continued Neferhotep. “As far as anyone needs to know officially, Sonebi died of a heart attack. His work was hard. The wife and family have been informed of this decision. Pashed will attest to it in the scroll to be placed in the Archives. Sonebi’s successor has already been appointed. He has taken up his post. As far as the world is concerned beyond these walls, there has not been a ripple. Security has not been breached.”
“I see.”
“But you have failed, Huy.” Now there was no mistaking the satisfaction in Neferhotep’s voice. “And there is the question of what to do with you.”
Huy allowed himself a cautious inward smile. Horemheb would not retain him any longer after this. He would be free. To do what, he did not know; but he was tired of the palace and its ways.
“You must prepare yourself, Huy,” continued the Leader of the Black Medjays. “The king wants to see you himself.”
“When?”
“Immediately.” Neferhotep raised his hand and from somewhere behind him two senior Medjays appeared. “Goodbye, Huy. I am not certain that we shall meet again.”
Huy turned without speaking and followed the officers to the broad lane between high walls that led to Horemheb’s own quarters. Whatever Neferhotep might think or wish, if Horemheb wanted to destroy Huy, he would not waste time in meeting him. But if the Pharaoh had not been deceived: if somehow he knew that Huy had succeeded–
The scribe could not think of that. But as he stepped into the red sunlight of the First Courtyard of the Palace of the Southern Capital he knew that he had made the right decision.