City of Dreams

ELEVEN

Returning to the room from the courtyard, Huy put everything back exactly as he had found it. He made sure that his knife was close to hand, and walked outside again, seating himself on the stone bench by the pool. For the first time he noticed that it contained two large fish, gasping side by side near the surface, their stupid, greedy faces staring avidly at nothing. Huy looked around for the water storage jar, found it, and with a small wooden bucket he passed his time by refilling the pool to the brim. He hoped the fish would be grateful, and wondered how long a wait he had ahead of him before Surere reappeared. He lay down on the stone bench.

He knew he had slept, for there was a cramp in his neck and the memory of a dream: he had been on the River, on a boat with Aahmes and their children. It was the time of the Opet festival, and they had been happy, making their new year vows to each other with no reserve in their eyes or in their hearts. He could still see the sunlight on the water. Now, as he looked around the dark courtyard, rubbing his neck, he realised that he was still alone. He glanced up at the star-crowded sky, calculating the time. By the temperature alone, it must have been well past the sixth hour.

A prescient instinct must have awoken him, for a matter of minutes later the bolt of the door was drawn softly, and Surere slipped into the courtyard. Huy made no attempt to move from his place on the bench, though the stone was cool now and hurt his rump, but the former nomarch, his heart turned in on itself, did not notice him immediately. His expression was intent.

As soon as Surere saw him he darted forward, like an animal that does not give warning before it attacks, his hand moving swiftly to his hip for his knife. But Huy already had his out and had stood with equal speed, presenting the side of his body to his adversary, balancing on his toes. For a moment they were still, staring at each other in silence, the world shrunk to the space they stood in. Then Surere smiled.

‘So. This time you visit me.’

‘Yes.’

‘How did you find me?’

‘I followed Ankhu. I was surprised to see him. I thought he was gathering a party to hunt you.’

Surere looked thoughtful. ‘That is unlikely, but the boy is full of bluster. In any case, as you have discovered, he knows where I am. How long have you been here?’

‘Since then.’

‘So you have found everything.’

‘You hid nothing.’

Surere shrugged. ‘It was over.’

‘Do you have the original papyri?’

‘They are safe.’

‘Why did you do this, Surere?’

‘It was a way of ensuring my safety, and it became a way of collecting funds for my work. I was reclaiming what rightfully belonged to the Aten.’

‘When did this start?’

Surere smiled. ‘Many years ago.’

‘At the City of the Horizon?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did you know what Reni was doing?’

Surere spread his hands. ‘I had the queen’s confidence. She did not understand figures, but perhaps she had an inkling something was wrong. I told her that I would keep an eye on things.’

‘But how did you get hold of Reni’s accounts?’

‘That was easy. He fled the city before its collapse. Many of the great officials thought their slate would be wiped clean with the downfall of the king. I made copies myself, and had them, and the originals, hidden here, in the Southern Capital, shortly before Akhenaten’s death. We all knew it was coming.’

‘Who hid them for you?’

‘Someone I could trust. Amenenopet, that sweet boy.’

‘How did you know you would need them?’

Surere smiled again. ‘I didn’t. But I knew that Reni was treacherous enough to have a good chance of surviving the Fall. I swore that if I ever survived, I would make him pay.’

‘I have read your copies. Did Reni believe you still had the originals?’

‘He couldn’t take risks. He recognised his own work. And it made sense to pay me. If the state had found out, he would have had to return it all. He would have been disgraced; and he would have been exiled from the city. It would have killed him.’

‘He could have killed you.’

‘There was that risk. But I think he was too frightened. He could not know what I had done with the originals, which he believed destroyed years ago. He could not know what provision I had made.’

‘What provision had you made?’

‘None. But I knew that God would protect me as I was working for Him.’

‘What about Reni’s daughters?’

Surere sighed. ‘That was a pity. After Nephthys had been killed, I knew I could no longer rely on him. His sadness was beginning to make him reckless. He began to speak of sacrifices to Selkit. She is his guardian goddess.’

Huy’s mind raced. The scorpion goddess. The goddess of the heat of the sun’s rays.

‘I told him she would not help. He had taken what belonged to Amun, under orders to render it to Aten. But he kept it for himself.’

Huy remembered the great tax levies imposed on the old religion by Akhenaten shortly before his departure from the Southern Capital for the City of the Horizon. Reni had been heavily involved. All the valuables stored up by the priests of Amun were forfeited, taken to finance the new city and the new cult of the One God. Inevitably, some of the funds went missing in the transition, lost in the paperwork: a caravan of donkeys disappeared in the desert, a bullion barge sunk without trace in the river. With the reversion to the old order, the priests of Amun had clawed almost everything back. But not all.

‘If Reni had betrayed me I would have given myself up to Kenamun and bought my life with Reni’s false accounts,’ said Surere. ‘They would have sent me back to the labour camps; but at least I would still have been in this world, to escape again, to do my work for the Aten.’

‘Might Reni have guessed your plan?’

‘Perhaps. It would not have mattered. It might not even have worked. Reni has ingratiated himself with Kenamun. He has information too, which the priest wouldn’t wish to be made public.’

‘How do you know?’

‘His son told me.’

‘Why?’

‘He hates his father.’

‘Then why did he not betray him?’

‘He is too good a son for that.’

‘But he knows what material his father has to threaten Kenamun with?’

Surere smiled. He no longer looked mad at all. ‘There is a brothel in the palace compound which caters to…special tastes. Kenamun has such tastes. Reni has an interest in the brothel. When I restore the true faith, I will return here and burn all such places to the ground, with their occupants. There will be such cleansing as this city has never known. If only there were not this delay I would leave tonight – but for the orders of the king.’

Huy watched in amazement as Surere abruptly threw himself down on to the stone bench and succumbed to a racking fit of weeping. There was nothing Huy could do to stop it or to give comfort. Awkwardly, he reached forward and touched Surere’s shoulder. It felt strange to him to be on a such a footing with this man. It was as if their pasts belonged to other people. He wondered if his own mind could have weathered what Surere’s had been through; the changes it had experienced, after so much confidence and so much power.

The weeping subsided. Huy fetched water for Surere to wash in. While the man was recovering, he searched for food. There was none in the house.

‘What are the orders of the king?’ he asked, finally.

Surere was eager to tell him. ‘He is unlike the man I remember. Our lord was always firm, but he was never cruel. He never let anything get in his way, but he did no injustice to anyone else.’

‘What did he say?’ persisted Huy gently.

‘I am glad you are here tonight. I have been in such perplexity. Every order he has given me I have obeyed: to stay here when I wanted to leave; to collect more and more from Reni even though I had enough. And now this.’ Surere lapsed once again into an infuriating, brooding silence.

‘Now?’ Huy ventured at length. He dared not push too hard; nor was he sure yet whether the king existed anywhere but in Surere’s heart.

‘He tells me I must say I killed the four girls.’

Huy did not speak at once. He did not know how much Surere knew about the murders; he was not even sure that Surere was not the murderer. This order from the king was unambivalent; but if Surere was guilty, and the king a figment of his heart, then why should he feel that the demand was unjust? But there was another thing. Five girls had died.

‘Did you agree?’

‘How could I? I have killed no one. If there is need for the innocent of this city to perish, to be spared iniquity, then it is for God to decide. And if God chooses me to be his agent in this, I will know.’

‘Are you sure you have not been chosen, perhaps without the conscious knowledge of your heart?’

‘How could I have performed the killings? In the palace compound?’

‘You have learnt stealth.’

‘You will not believe me.’

‘You know how many girls have died. Do you know their names?’

‘Yes.’

‘How? Because you watched them? Because you decided they should die?’

Surere looked like a trapped beast. He sucked in his breath. ‘I know them because the king told me.’

‘When?’

‘Tonight.’

‘Why I should believe you?’

Surere was still for an instant, then came to a decision. ‘You must see the king for yourself. You are a faithful servant. He will welcome you.’

Huy hesitated. Fear, sudden and undeniable, rose in his throat. ‘Where do you meet him?’

But Surere was cunning. ‘I will show you. And you will not leave me before we go. I do not want you to trap me.’

‘I swear I will not.’

‘He has told me to come to him again this next night. He says he will bring a confession. I must sign it and then die.’ Surere said this with simple regret. ‘Perhaps we can dissuade him. I have more important work to do for him. It is not yet my time to die. I will teach the Semites the doctrine of Aten.’

The day that followed was the longest of Huy’s life. He discussed the reign of Akhenaten endlessly with Surere, going over and over the last days, the final insanity, the wilful sacrifice of the northern empire. Surere reminisced sentimentally about his last lover, the freed slave Amenenopet, that joyful young man from beyond the Great Green somewhere, with his fair skin and blond, curly hair. How the sun had tormented him at first! Did Huy know what had happened to him? How long it had taken him to get used to his Black Land name! And his laughter – like bells ringing in a strange land. When talk faded, Surere produced a box of senet, and they played the game until the sun set, each man feeling the anticipation rise in his stomach with the lengthening of the shadows, and each aware of it in the other. Neither had eaten, and Surere had not mentioned food. There was only water to drink. Huy felt in need of bread and wine, but knew that lack of them sharpened his senses.

He managed to fit veiled questions into the conversation about the deaths of Merymose and the Twin Rivers girl. Surere showed no interest in either of them, nor did he seem to know anything about them.

The long hours, the stilted conversation, the tension of the approaching night, took their toll on Huy. By contrast, Surere was serene. He constantly spoke of the comfort he derived from Huy’s presence, and the pleasure he would take in presenting him to the king.

‘Keep in the background at the beginning,’ he said. ‘I will call you when the moment comes.’

Huy knew then that they would meet no king. He felt the knife resting against his thigh under his kilt. Tomorrow, he would tell Ipuky what he believed. Ipuky would tell Kenamun, and Kenamun would have his murderer. Then, perhaps, Huy would discover what had happened to Merymose, and the Twin Rivers girl, and how their deaths fitted into the puzzle that had thrown out two more strands now.

At last Surere stood up. Suddenly all the hours of waiting seemed too short a time. Fatigue had to be shouldered aside. Huy splashed his face with water and shook out his kilt. His stomach was hollow.

‘I am ready.’

Surere had hidden the two boxes, pushing them under the bed in an arbitrary and untidy way which was uncharacteristic but which indicated that his heart was already on other matters. Silently they passed through the door and into the street. There was no moon but the sky dazzled with stars, the old immortal ones, who were there before the gods themselves, and who had looked down on the Black Land even before men, the inventors of God, walked the earth. That had been the teaching of the Aten. Out of what curious animal did we stumble? Huy thought, following Surere’s lean back as he led the way down through the streets towards the quay.

Apart from a few watchmen posted on the laden boats, no one was about. Surere made his way north along the river-front until he came to a small wooden jetty ending in a ladder, at the foot of which a small ferry-boat was moored. They climbed aboard and Surere cast off, manoeuvring the little craft into the stream with ease.

Once on the west bank, they made fast to the side of one of the large workmen’s barges, and clambered over it on to the land. Above them and to the south, two or three small lights winked from the tents where some of the artisans at work on the tombs were spending the night. Huy and Surere made directly inland before turning north. By now Huy knew where they were going, and was not surprised. Nefertiti’s burial chamber lay only a few hundred paces ahead.

‘I have been coming here ever since I returned to the Southern Capital,’ said Surere. ‘Her tomb has been neglected. I have done what I can to clear the rubbish from it, but there is too much work for one man.’

‘When did the king appear to you first?’

‘It was during the third visit I made. I think that he had been coming here alone for a long time, perhaps since the moment of his own death. He loved her beyond measure.’

The cartouche containing Nefertiti’s name had been carefully cleaned, and the sand and brushweed partially cleared away from the entrance; but even in the faint light Huy could see that the paintwork was weathered and dull, and the place had a sad and neglected air. The entrance doors had been broken, no doubt by tomb robbers, who had grown bold in the period of anarchy which had existed here in the last years of Akhenaten’s reign.

When they had approached to within ten paces, Surere motioned to a large boulder which lay by the side of the all but obliterated pathway that led to the tomb. Near it was a low mound, roughly oval in shape. It was the kind of grave in which you might bury a pariah-dog.

‘I wanted to show you this,’ said Surere proudly.

Huy looked at the grave. Even in this light he could see that it was new.

‘God brought me back here to do one good deed, at least,’ continued Surere tranquilly. ‘He thought he was a good servant of the Aten, but he was not. He hated the queen. She could only bring forth daughters. He thought she was a monster, sent by demons to undermine the Aten. A very primitive man. I don’t know how I can ever have been close to him.’

‘Paheri?’

‘Yes. They never caught him. He had come back here, too. But he was hounded by demons himself. I would never have recognised him, I just took him for another harbour beggar, until he called me by name.’

‘What? I thought you were enemies.’

‘We were.’

‘Why didn’t he expose you?’

Surere smiled again. ‘He was past hatred, and he acknowledged the punishment of God. I was wrong to fear him.’

‘What happened?’

‘After the king’s fall, he escaped to the desert. He took refuge with desert dwellers, but he had already caught the disease by then. They threw him out as soon as they discovered that he was a leper, and he made his way here to beg. In the shadow of his father’s house.’ Surere paused. ‘He wanted one final favour from me. The disease had already eaten his hands and his face, and his feet were so rotten he could barely walk on them. He wanted me to send him to the Fields of Aarru. I brought him up here and killed him, and buried him so that he could sleep under the protection of the queen he had misjudged. I knew she would forgive him. Forgiveness is better than monuments.’ He broke off again, listening. ‘Now I must prepare myself, for the king is coming.’

Struggling to contain his full heart, Huy crouched by the boulder while the loyal servant approached the last resting place of his adored queen alone. Surere had brought an offering of white bread. He placed it reverently on a copper dish which lay on a small stone table in front of the entrance. He lit the oil lamp next to it, then knelt, head bowed, and waited. As he watched from his hiding place, Huy felt the hair on his neck rise.

The king appeared. He came from nowhere that Huy could see, suddenly standing in front of Surere, part-hidden in the shadow of the tomb. He was dressed in a long robe, and his face was not clearly visible, but there was no mistaking the huge belly, or the broad hips and thighs. Huy’s throat was dry, and he prayed that Surere would not call him forward to meet the ghost.

The little scribe could not remember the sound of the king’s voice, having only heard it three or four times. When he spoke now, the tone was reedy and high; yet there was something familiar about it. Surere, who had been in the king’s presence frequently during his life, accepted it unquestioningly. Huy felt his own soul separate from his body and float above it. But part of his heart held back, and told him: if it is the king, he will know you are here, and you will have no power over what he does. If it is not the king…

‘Surere!’ said Akhenaten.

‘My lord.’ Surere kept his head bowed, his own voice a whisper.

‘I hold out a scroll and a knife. On the scroll is a confession. You will sign it with your Horus-name, with your nebti-name, with your Golden-Horus-name, with your nesu bat-name, and with your Son-of-Ra-name. Then you will take the knife and fall on it, entering the Boat of the Night to join me in the Fields of Aarru.’

‘But what must I confess?’ Surere looked up, trembling, his fear of death greater than his fear of Akhenaten. ‘Why must I do this?’

‘It is not for you to question my word. My word is the word of God. The scroll tells of the children you have sent to me to protect them from evil, and of the Medjay, Merymose, who would have thwarted me.’

Surere bowed his head again, raising his hands to receive the paper and the knife. The king stepped forward to give them to him. As he did so, his face came into the starlight and Huy could see that it was covered by a clay mask in a crude likeness of Akhenaten. Now his heart was sure; but he stayed where he was.

The king placed a scribe’s palette, with ink cake, brushes and water bowl, on the table next to the bread and the lamp. As if asleep, Surere unrolled the small scroll and signed his name. Then he took up the knife. Huy moved into the open.

‘Have you decided to stop killing?’ he asked the king loudly.

The masked head swung round. Surere, with a moan of terror, scuttled into the darkness, still clutching the knife. ‘Surere!’ Huy shouted after him. ‘This is not the king!’

The figure was pulling off its robe, and with it the padding which made up the false stomach and distended hips and thighs. A long dagger had appeared in its hand. Then a hand went up and removed the mask.

The dark eyes held a gloating triumph. The mouth was turned down. The face looked far older than it was.

‘No, I have not stopped killing. My work will never stop. But every day you have been getting closer to me, and it was time to pause, to shake you off. Surere has milked Reni enough now, and his usefulness is at an end. It is a pity he brought you here. I had hoped for a tidier conclusion. Think: the four girls, and Merymose. The riddle of their deaths solved by the confession of a madman. Your time would have come later. I already had your trust.’

Under the cold light of the stars, the sand was grey as pearls. Huy shifted his weight, watching the knife.

‘Did you really think you could persuade him to kill himself?’

‘He believed I was the old king. I followed him here once, after my father organised the hiding place for him in the old town house, and paid the first instalment of his blackmail. Surere disappointed me. I thought he was sincere; I thought he shared my ideas about innocence; but he was corrupt, like all the others. After my sisters’ deaths, my wretched brother started to pick up the scent.’

‘Why did you kill them?’

‘To save them.’ Nebamun ripped off the remains of his costume, and stood naked and taut in the sand, the knife solid in his hand. ‘I loved Iritnefert, but she wouldn’t have me. She wanted more. She wanted other men. I wasn’t good enough. I knew she preferred Ankhu, with his drinking and his hunting. So I made a tryst with her – a last appeal. I knew what I would do. It had to be by water, for purification, and then an embrace. I used an embalmer’s probe to kill them.’

Huy looked from the youth’s face to the hand holding the knife, judging his moment. From the darkness beyond them, he could hear Surere sobbing.

‘Then my sister Nefi. Did you know my father took her to the Glory of Set for Kenamun? Oh, she enjoyed it. Kenamun tied her up and tattooed a scorpion on her back. Her idea. The family goddess. My father helped him. Then she and another girl – a little bitch from the Twin Rivers…Well, you can use your imagination. The Twin Rivers girl disappeared. But not Nefi. She told me all about it. She thought I’d like to do it with her too. So I played along. It was too late to save her, but not to stop the pollution of her spirit. After that, I wondered about women…I knew Mertseger. She was a friend, she’d known my sisters from childhood. I’d seen her looking at me. I decided to find out if she was like the others; if she would be ready to fall. She was! But I saved her.’

‘And your sister Nephthys?’

‘Do you think marriage isn’t also a violation?’

Huy breathed quietly.

‘Then Merymose found out about the blackmail,’ continued Nebamun. ‘He followed Surere and discovered the house. I followed him. I wasn’t sure what he would do but I thought he’d contact you before he went to Kenamun. And you wouldn’t have been content with Surere. I knew it would only be a matter of time before you started to pick up other threads.’

‘So you wanted to help me in order to watch me?’

‘Of course. I am not a fool.’

‘And Merymose?’

‘That was easy. I trapped him in the stall and buried him in grain. I couldn’t have killed him otherwise – he was too strong for me, and I couldn’t rely on taking him completely by surprise.’

‘And me?’

Nebamun laughed. ‘You are a scribe; Merymose was a soldier. My brother trained me to use a knife. I do not think you will match me. Especially with one arm in a sling.’

‘What did you do to the Twin Rivers girl?’

‘Nothing. She disappeared. Perhaps Kenamun got too rough for her and she ran away.’

‘And your father?’ asked Huy, trying to keep the disgust out of his voice.

‘He only watched – everything,’ replied Nebamun contemptuously. ‘He enjoyed watching. He was always going to one brothel or another. Especially to places where his money would get him whatever he wanted. But he has his punishment now.’

Huy had guessed that the talking was planned to lull him. Now, without warning, Nebamun lunged. Huy stepped back fast, but not quickly enough to prevent the knife from slicing through the linen of his sling and opening a shallow wound the length of his injured forearm.

He brought his own knife out and across in a slashing movement which was uncontrolled and foolish, and ought to have missed completely, but caught the side of Nebamun’s throat and opened the great reservoir of life there. Blood pumped out in a jet as Nebamun continued his attacking run for ten more paces, only then staggering forward and lying still, blood murmuring in his throat as he died.

Using his mouth and his good hand, Huy managed to retie the sling. His head rang with pain. He stumbled over to the offering table where the lamp still burned by the bread, and sat down on a corner of it, resting his arms on his knees.

Across the valley, he could see the lights of the workers’ tents. Nebamun’s blood was black on the grey sand. Above, the eternal, distant stars shone, the far gods, who measured changes in eons.

Huy listened to the silence, and became aware that it contained more than Nebamun’s death alone. He wanted to call Surere’s name, but his voice would not rise above a whisper, so he set off in the direction the sobbing had come from.

He was crouched under the cartouche of Nefertiti, his knees drawn up to his head, ready to return to Geb, a child of earth going back to his father in the position of the unborn. The bronze knife lay by him, hilt and blade dark with blood. Near it lay a dozen small scrolls of papyrus. One was the confession, which Huy took and burned at the lamp. The others were the originals of Reni’s accounts, proof of his embezzlement.

Surere was not yet dead. Huy came up to him and made him as comfortable as he could, putting his good arm round his shoulders. He looked up, his eyes wide as a little child’s. ‘There is no answer, is there?’ he said. ‘This is the only end of our confusion.’ He nestled his head on his knees again and died quietly.

Huy made his way down to the River. Wearily, he untied the ferry-boat and rowed back to the jetty on the east bank. Dawn was close but still he had the river to himself. He remembered that it was a holiday. Today the new king, Tutankhamun, would formally be shorn of his Lock of Youth. Soon, he would take power into his own hands and the uneasy regency of Ay and Horemheb would be at an end. He tied up the boat and made his way home. Later, he would go to Ipuky and make his last report. Ipuky could do with it as he wished. It worried him that the death of Isis was still a mystery, but the gods do not give tidy endings. He thought of her body, eaten by quicklime in the burial pit for the unclaimed dead, and said a prayer for her poor, abused Ka.

There was never going to be enough evidence to bring down Kenamun, her most likely killer; but it was possible that Ipuky would have enough information to close down the Glory of Set. Reni, he knew, would be broken by what had happened. It would be for Ipuky to decide what to do with the accounts. Huy wondered how Ipuky would take the news of his own son’s death.

For himself, if Ipuky kept his word, he would own the house he now lived in. An element of security would be back in his life. But Huy did not dare hope that the young pharaoh would pardon him – indeed, as a former servant of the Great Criminal he would do well not to gain too much notoriety.

He washed, aware for the first time of how much of Nebamun’s blood had splashed on to him, and went to lie down on his bed; but he could not rest. He watched the sky through his window as it turned paler, finally resolving itself into the hard, invariable blue of late spring, and he listened to the excited bustle, different in quality from usual, of the city waking up to a day of celebration. He thought of Taheb, and of what they would say to each other when she returned. He thought of Nebamun’s retreat from disappointment and disillusion into madness; of Surere’s hopeless ideals; and of the wretched uncertainty of life.

At last, as the first music struck up in the street, lulled by it, he slept.