City of Dreams

TEN

On the eve of her wedding, they found Nephthys dead. It was unusual for her to have been alone then, but she had asked for time to herself. Although the ceremony itself was a simple one – a private exchange of shared intentions in which the most important formal element was the document which laid down precisely who got what in the case of divorce – it was nevertheless going to be used by both sets of parents as an excuse to throw a party, during which they would vie with each other in largesse, showing off their wealth as well as arranging useful introductions for their unmarried children.

Huy, recovering from the wounds he had received, and cursing the broken left forearm which the doctor at the Place of Healing had put in a splint and then bound too tightly, heard about the killing from Nebamun, who awakened him early in the morning – about the eleventh hour of night – with a furious hammering at his door. Although his eyes were red, the young man seemed calm – until Huy handed him a cup of beer. His hands trembled so violently that he was unable to bring it to his lips. It took him several minutes before he could talk.

The plump girl, who had been so full of life, was killed in the same way as the earlier victims. She had been found lying on her back, hands folded, naked. There were no marks or signs of a struggle, and the body was without a blemish.

‘I have lost two sisters now. I know you are working for Ipuky, but you must let me work with you. I have a right. I seek vengeance.’

‘And Ankhu?’

‘He is organising his own hunt.’

‘Why do you not join him?’

‘Because I think you know what you are doing.’ The reason, as Nebamun gave it, fell too pat. ‘Won’t you tell me how much you have found out?’ continued the youth. ‘I am older than the king; and grief has made me a man.’

Huy thought about Reni. What was the old scribe’s reaction? Where would his philosophical attitude be now? Would he continue to be prepared to leave the matter of investigation to the Medjays? And what would his heart tell him about the gods, who had singled him out for this fate? Whom would he blame, and to whom would he turn for protection and comfort? His youngest daughter was almost ready for burial, her body emptied, dried out, repacked, decked out for the long night, bandaged in the finest linen with the scarab placed over her heart, and laid in her case of painted cedarwood. Soon her mouth would be opened by the lector-priest and her purification ministered by the Sent-priest. Horus would restore her five senses for the Fields of Aarru. She would descend to the Hall of the Two Truths, and go before the Forty-Two Judges. Then Nephthys would follow her, and instead of standing, as a new wife, before Renenutet and Tawaret, would go as a shadow to meet Anubis and Osiris.

Would Reni seek consolation in the arms of his last daughter, or would he lose himself in wine? Perhaps there was another route he would choose – after meeting the scribe again, Huy had little doubt who the rich client at the City of Dreams had been, and knew why his profile, fleetingly glimpsed, had seemed familiar. He thought of the bruise on Kafy’s shoulder. Did the rest of his family know of his predilections? Nephthys had not. How might Ankhu react if he knew?

The new death showed that the killer and his motivations had not changed. The death of Isis may have been an aberration, or it may have had nothing to do with the others. That Merymose had died because he had discovered something important enough to threaten the killer was clear, and Huy knew that his own reluctance to take the policeman into his confidence had been one indirect reason for his death.

One detail needed confirmation, and Huy knew that he would not be able to perform the task himself. Even Ipuky could not arrange for him to see this body, and he no longer had the cachet of officialdom with which to browbeat the embalmer. Could he expect Nebamun to do it for him? And yet the best form of relief for this boy whom grief had made a man would be in action.

He made his decision quickly.

‘I accept your help,’ he said.

Hope came into Nebamun’s eyes, and with it eagerness and desperation. Fear too. What secrets were there in Reni’s family? Would involving Nebamun put him in any danger? But it was too late to retract.

‘I need to know how Nephthys died. There is no trace on the body of a wound? Just as Neferukhebit? It will be difficult. You will have to look carefully at her body.’ He decided not to tell the young man where to search.

Nebamun looked at him. ‘I have already done that. I knew that there had to be a wound: she had not been drowned or strangled or poisoned. There is a little mark, only just larger than a needle might have made, under her left breast.’

‘I see.’

‘Is that how the others were killed?’

‘Yes.’

‘What happens now?’

‘Go home. Comfort your parents. Find out all you can about what Ankhu intends to do. Our quarry needs very careful stalking.’

Nebamun left. Huy watched him cross the little square in front of his house and disappear around the corner on the way back to the palace compound. He thought of the forsaken wedding preparations, of the thoughts running through the head of the betrothed man, whose name he did not even know, of the decorations which were now mockeries. We establish order and think we are in control; then Nu throws over the table and breaks what we have taken a lifetime to construct. Perhaps one day he will even manage to destroy the pyramids we have built in defiance of his chaos. But however solidly we build, our lives remain huts of straw and mud, at the mercy of the River and the Sun, thought Huy.

* * *

Dressed in the quiet livery of Ipuky’s staff again, make-up covering the worst of the bruises on his face, his arm tied in a linen sling, Huy spent the next two days sending himself on imaginary errands in the palace compound, which took him past Reni’s house often enough to be able to assess the state of repair and height of its walls, the number of gates it had, and which streets they led into. The walls were in good condition, and smoothly plastered so that it would be hard to climb them, and if anyone had tried to, scuff marks would surely have shown where. There were two gates apart from the main entrance: a small one which led directly into the garden from an alley along the east side of the house, and a double gate for waggons and chariots opening on to a broad square which faced the north wall.

In the course of those two days no member of the family left the house. Ankhu, with well-muscled arms oiled to show them off to their best effect but with a stomach that was already turning soft, had accompanied the narrow cart pulled by a white ox which took Nephthys’s body, wrapped in a white linen sheet, to the embalmer, but that was all. Huy had followed him. After he had left the embalmer, Ankhu went to the East Barracks and spent the afternoon drinking with cronies there, returning as the seqtet boat of the sun sailed towards the Horizon of Manu, stopping only to buy mint and coriander from a stall, and several cupfuls from a waterseller.

There was no sign of either Reni or his wife, or of the eldest daughter. Nebamun made no attempt to contact Huy. There was a steady stream of visitors to the house, of whom Ipuky was one.

‘It is curious,’ Huy’s employer told him later. ‘Reni has aged. He has shrunk, as if he were already preparing to return to Geb. I spoke to him, but he barely noticed me. The brothers are bent on vengeance, especially the older one, but he does not know what to do. He asked me if his men could work with mine, but they are a wild lot, cadets, and I do not think they will do more than relieve their feelings by scratching at the surface of this thing. They will drink, swear oaths, and plan great deeds.

If they find Surere they will tear him limb from limb.’ Ipuky paused. ‘Nebamun is quieter. Do you know him at all?’

‘No. I met him once.’

‘He is intelligent, but I cannot fathom him. The mother and the daughter have grown in stature. They have become the strength of the family. The girl especially, though there is a bitter satisfaction on the mother’s face – as if a prophecy she expected were finally being fulfilled. But I fear for them. You must find Paheri and stop him.’

‘Are you sure you know nothing more? I can only track the beast by watching the place where he last killed.’

Ipuky looked hard at Huy. ‘I know you do not trust me completely, and why should you, when all I can offer you is a conviction that my son is here? But my spirit senses his presence.’ He slapped his hands on his thighs in frustration. ‘If I were you, I would have little faith in hunches either.’ The panic which had seized other parents in the palace compound had revived with new strength. Horemheb issued a proclamation that Kenamun’s investigations would soon bear fruit, that no more than ordinary security precautions need be observed. The season was progressing, and every day that passed was hotter. Soon it would be akhet, the time of Inundation, though the river was not expected to rise as much as was hoped. If it dropped even a fraction below the minimum limit, a year of famine would follow. The people were restless. Things were not going well. Where were the gods, to aid them in their distress? Or was this the beginning of a Judgement? ‘What is Kenamun doing?’ Huy asked.

‘Horemheb is making him sweat. He wants to deploy his full force here. There will soon be two men on every street here, and consequently none in the harbour quarter, where crime will double. There is talk of using soldiers too. But there are others who say that Surere has called forth demons, and that men will be no use against them. Kenamun himself looks calm, but there is always sweat on his lip.’

‘If Surere is still in the city, they will find him.’

‘Yes.’ But Ipuky looked thoughtful.

* * *

On the third day, Nebamun and Ankhu left the house at dawn together. Huy noticed immediately that they were unarmed. The sunlight filtered into the ochre canyons of the streets through a clinging mist. A pair of egrets, unsettled by the noise of the garden gate entrance clicking shut, left their perches high on the wall of Reni’s house and wheeled round towards the river. Huy, who had taken up residence in a small upper-room at Ipuky’s house, where the younger children came to stare at him curiously, had risen at the ninth hour every night – well before the sun came up – and stationed himself in a doorway on the square to the north of Reni’s house, from where he could look down the alley and cover the large rear gateway. The main gate was always attended by a gatekeeper, and it would be impossible to open the big northern gates unaided, so Huy guessed that anyone wanting to enter or leave the house unnoticed would use the garden entrance; but the alley was too straight and narrow to admit any hiding place. Kenamun’s additional Medjays were due to be on the streets from that night, and the authorities had made no secret of the fact, in order to calm the people. Huy had argued that if there was going to be any covert movement from the house it would be now.

Early as it was, the square was not empty. Already servants had been down to the harbour and were returning with fish – their own food, for the lords who lived here would never stoop to eat cursed meat. The servants would breakfast on ful, olives and white cheese before preparing more sumptuous meals for their masters – dates, pomegranates, honey cakes, and, in the palace itself, rare depeh fruit, still imported from the lost northern empire. Walking through the mist, the sun casting thin shadows behind them, moving in silence, they were like the population of a dream.

The brothers walked south along the alley, purposefully and without conversing, turning west at its far end, the dispersing mist swirling behind them. Huy could see that Ankhu carried a packet wrapped in vine leaves. The scribe followed at a good distance. He was hampered by his damaged arm and he knew that if Nebamun saw him, he would recognise his stocky figure instantly.

As they walked through the streets and squares of the palace compound, now heading north again, the number of people about increased, and it became easier to maintain the pursuit. At the same time, Huy had to follow more closely, to avoid losing them in the crowd. He was also considering what he might do if they split up, though his heart had turned over the possibility that Nebamun had contrived to accompany his brother. A column of soldiers marching towards the palace cut Huy off for a long minute as they blocked a square, but by now Huy was sure that Reni’s sons were on the way towards the city itself, and, continuing in that direction, he soon picked them up again.

Using a large ox-cart loaded with clay storage jars as cover, Huy managed to keep out of sight crossing the open space which separated the palace from the town, but neither brother seemed aware of being followed. They took the main road which bisected the Southern Capital on its south-to-north axis, and turned right, into a street which led gently up a low hill. This was a residential district, and still quiet, but Huy knew that the streets here were arranged in a grid, which made it easy to keep one corner between him and his quarry. The disadvantage was that each street was alike. The only aspect the houses presented to the road was a blank wall, punctuated by doors at irregular intervals, which led to courtyards, though you could see an occasional small upper window.

Huy had been following Nebamun and Ankhu successfully for five minutes, memorising the number of left and right turns they had made since leaving the hill road, when he suddenly knew where he was. He slowed his pace as he approached the next corner, and turned it with caution.

There, as in a wall painting, stood the house. He was sure it was the house, though he had barely been aware of it at the time. Now he could see that the original whitewash had turned pale beige. The blank brown door was peeling. High in the wall there was a small, shuttered window. Otherwise the wall was unbroken to the tiled roof and for twenty paces in either direction.

Ankhu knocked on the door and almost immediately it was opened, closing behind him as soon as he had entered. Nebamun waited in the street. Huy watched from his corner, praying that no stray servant would come upon him and question him. The wall of the house opposite, as he had expected, was blank. The entrance was therefore not overlooked. There was no shop, no well, not even a shady square at one end of the street.

The mist had dispersed and the rising sun in the matet boat cast a shadowless white light. Aware of the noise his sandals made on the gravel, Huy walked away from the corner and found a small patch of shade. Covering his head, he squatted down to wait.

After no more than five minutes, Ankhu emerged and walked back the way he had come, Nebamun falling into step beside him without a word. He no longer carried the parcel wrapped in vine leaves. Huy watched them go. Ankhu’s eyes were dark, his jaw clenched in anger.

Huy settled back. Nothing moved and there was no sound. People who were going out would have left by now and no one would return before the sun had passed its high point. The light turned the dusty floor of the street white, and its movement robbed him of the grudging shade. An hour passed, and as if by a signal the crickets started in unison, their monotonous song making him drowsy as small shadows once again began to colonise the street. So quiet was it that a cobra uncoiled itself from some hidden recess and, black against the white, made its unhurried, liquid way down the centre of the street. Another hour went by, and Huy was beginning to wonder if he had been mistaken to stay, if perhaps no one would emerge before night, when the door opened, and a tall, well-dressed man, his head cloaked in a shawl against the sun, emerged and hurried down the street towards the centre of the town.

Huy had recognised Surere immediately, but dressed as he was he would arouse no attention in anyone else. He would soon mingle with the crowd. Huy was pleased that he had thought in the same way as Surere: now was the safest time of day to move around, when people’s minds were on their work and their own affairs, when there were plenty of people about, and when heat slowed the senses of all but those who needed to be alert to survive.

As soon as the slender figure had vanished at the end of the street, Huy walked swiftly up to the door and ran his good right hand around it. It was a well-made door, set flush to the wall, and its bolt was so cleverly concealed that Huy could not find it. However it had a wooden handle set in its centre. Huy managed to place one foot on it, and, by reaching up, grasped the upper edge of the lintel above the door, and hauled himself up. Balancing on his feet and the painfully extended fingers of his left hand, he reached up with his right to the shutters of the small window. Sweat poured down his face as he manipulated them, letting out his breath with a rush when he succeeded in opening them. They swung out under their own weight and banged against the wall. Huy held his breath. The noise had been a thunderclap. For long moments he clung there, unwilling to give up his hard-attained position if he could continue to take advantage of it, but afraid that someone would come running. No one did. Laboriously, he got his good hand over the sill, and by pushing himself to the utmost of his height with his feet, he managed to shove and haul himself up and through the window.

He fell on to the wooden floor of the room behind it with a crash, feeling a stab of pain as his injured left arm took his weight. But in a moment he was upright, and had closed the shutters. He recognised the room instantly. Cautiously he made his way across it to the door and listened; but he knew that if there had been servants, or even a dog, they would long since have been aroused. A part of his heart allowed itself to be momentarily amused at his foolhardiness. Then he opened the door.

He was standing on a narrow gallery overlooking a courtyard which was far smaller than the front of the house justified. It had a neat, but neglected air: a dusty palm tree bowed over a stone bench near a small pool which had been allowed to become half empty. There was no sign of life, or even of occupation. Next to the door of the room from which he had just emerged was another, and next to that an inward-facing window. Beyond it, steep steps – all but a ladder – led down to the courtyard.

Huy did not want to spend longer than he had to upstairs. Here, he was trapped, as there would be no question of escaping from the house again by the window he had entered at. Hastily he tried the door of the second room, and found that it yielded. Inside, there was an old bed, which did not appear to be in use, and the usual low table and chair. A brief search revealed nothing, apart from two crumbling rolls of papyrus on which the writing was too faded to be decipherable.

There were no further rooms on this floor: the wall forming the opposite side of the courtyard must have belonged to another house. Downstairs, there were two more rooms. One was an entrance hall. The other contained a bed, a long, low table, and three stools. On two of the stools small, identical wooden chests had been placed. On the table was the package Ankhu had brought. It had been opened. The contents, still neatly packed, glittered in the soft light: agates, amethysts, red and yellow jasper, beryls, carnelians, garnets, lapis lazuli and gold beads. Some were in the form of necklaces, others of earrings; most were loose stones. Taking care not to disturb them, his ears always straining to pick up any sound from the street outside, Huy turned his attention to the two boxes. One was new; the other, Huy now saw, was chafed, and bore traces of sand. It was made of good cedarwood, and its bottom was wet.

Both boxes were fitted with simple bolts, which, however, Huy drew cautiously. Surere would not have been above placing scorpions in the boxes if he had suspected for a moment that they might be tampered with. The new box contained more jewels and gold beads. It was almost full, and Huy could not lift it with one hand. There were no scorpions. The second box contained papers. They were accounts. Each of the five small rolls of papyrus bore tightly-crammed lists of figures, in red and black ink.

Huy scanned their contents swiftly and understood. He also understood why the rolls of paper were new, though their contents covered transactions several years old. They were copies. Surere would have the originals safe somewhere else. He must have secured them as insurance, before his downfall.

Outside, it did not take Huy long to find the recently-dug hole, concealed by a flagstone, in which Surere had hidden the box of papers. He could imagine the transaction by which he presented one little scroll to Ankhu in return for each new delivery of jewels, no doubt promising the return of the originals once he was safely away. In the meantime, Huy imagined, Surere had found a way of financing his mission.