City of Dreams

TWO

Huy was shown to his place by a dark-skinned girl dressed in nothing but a broad gilded collar studded with oval turquoises and a similar thin girdle resting on her hips. Her breasts were small and firm, the nipples only a shade darker than her skin; because this was a party, she had threaded beads of carnelian into the hair of her pubis.

He drank from the beaker of wine she gave him and glanced around at his fellow guests. Some wore scented garlands round their necks, and most of the women had perfume cones on top of their black wigs. There were fifty people in the pillared hall, in groups of five at small tables dotted around a central area where a quartet of women musicians sat with a singer.

Huy was late, and he gave apologies to the three people at his table – a sad-eyed woman he did not know, her husband, a grain broker whom he knew by sight, and a Medjay captain, Merymose. They were reserved, though no more so than any strangers would be at first acquaintance, and cordial enough for Huy to think that either they did not know his background, or did not care.

‘Where is our hostess?’ he asked, looking round the room again. The invitation from Taheb had come out of the blue, and at first he had considered not accepting it. He had not seen Amotju’s widow since his friend’s death, and although the events surrounding it had forced the two of them into an uneasy alliance, she had always given the impression that her feelings for him were anything but warm. For this reason, if for no other, he had decided to attend the dinner party, curiosity having got the better of him. If Taheb had decided to invite him, there must be a reason. He was more intrigued than flattered to notice that he had been shown to a table at which chairs were set, rather than the stools given to the less-honoured guests.

‘She will be joining us,’ said the broker, indicating the empty chair between Huy and the Medjay. ‘She has gone to talk to her steward about the acrobats. They have arrived too early, and have another booking later.’

‘I don’t see why they can’t perform now,’ said his wife, who looked bored.

‘They would get in the way of the food servers,’ answered her husband matter of factly.

‘Oh.’ She picked up the mandrake fruit by her place and sniffed its sickly-sweet odour, darting a glance at Merymose, who answered it with a friendly look, declining its invitation.

‘Don’t you think it’s a little early for that?’ asked the broker, indicating the fruit. Muttering something under her breath, but without venom, the woman put the narcotic down and sighed. The awkwardness of the moment was saved by the arrival of two girls bearing golden plates with honey bread, cucumber, nabk berries, falafel and – luxuriously – roast beef. A third carried a pitcher with pomegranate wine, and refilled each beaker. The broker’s wife drained hers immediately and held it up for more. The broker pretended not to notice.

In an attempt to deflect attention from this, Merymose asked if anyone had seen the great rough-cut obelisk which had arrived from the First Cataract a week earlier and which had lain on the third jetty ever since, one of the quayside derricks having collapsed during offloading.

‘I think they have rolled it on to logs,’ said the broker.

‘Isn’t the quay too narrow for that?’ asked Huy, politely.

‘The one thing to be thankful for is that the stone didn’t fracture,’ said the broker. ‘That obelisk is to be set up and carved as a memorial to Horemheb’s victories in the north during the reign of Nebmare Amenophis.’

‘Then it would have been most unfortunate if it had broken,’ said Huy, neutrally, avoiding the Med jay’s eye. The pharaoh Amenophis III had died over twenty years ago, yet now the carved records on all public buildings were being altered to show that he was the immediate predecessor of Tutankhamun.

It would be as if Akhenaten had never existed. And yet during Amenophis’s long reign there had been very little military activity. During Akhenaten’s reign, when the northern empire had been lost, the commander-in-chief was Horemheb. The fifty-year-old general had now also been elected chief of police, and it seemed that he had the eleven-year-old pharaoh securely tucked into a fold of his blue-and-gold kilt.

‘I am surprised that Horemheb isn’t having his obelisk sheathed in gold – or at the very least, bronze,’ said the broker’s wife.

‘Why?’ asked Huy, though he guessed what was coming. Usually, only obelisks consecrated to the pharaoh or the gods were covered with precious metal. Dazzling in the sun, they were potent symbols of supreme power.

The woman looked at him archly. ‘Well, it shows modesty.’

Her husband bit his lip.

‘One of the prisoners from the barge escaped in the confusion,’ said Merymose. Huy glanced at him, and wondered if he did not see a humorous gleam in his eye. His lean body looked young, but the face belied it; Merymose must have been close to Huy’s age, and perhaps older. Huy wondered what his history was.

‘Have you caught him?’

‘No. It’s a problem, too, because he was a political detainee. From the court of the Criminal.’ He spoke harshly, and it was clear to Huy that he thought Akhenaten had indeed been a criminal, a betrayer of his country. Huy wondered who the escaped prisoner might be. It was likely that he would know him.

‘They’re holding the mason responsible in the Southern Prison,’ continued Merymose. ‘It turns out that he and the prisoner were lovers.’

‘What will happen to him?’ asked the broker’s wife, who had managed to take a pitcher of wine from a serving girl and keep it by her on the table.

The policeman spread his hands. ‘If in five days the prisoner is not recaptured, they will cut the throat of the mason.’

‘And if they do catch him?’

‘Then the prisoner will be impaled, and the mason will lose his nose and his right hand.’ Merymose kept his voice neutral, but Huy thought he could detect distaste in it. He looked at him curiously, noticing for the first time bitter lines at the corners of his mouth.

The woman drained her beaker and refilled it. ‘Poor people,’ she said, turning down her mouth. ‘One loses his life for following the wrong leader; the other stands to lose his livelihood and become a beggar at the very least. What a land ours has become.’

‘Shut up,’ hissed the broker. Merymose looked down, taking a bronze knife to his food. He had certainly heard. The broker’s wife, oblivious, ran her foot along Huy’s calf under the table and looked at him from under heavy lashes.

‘What muscles you have,’ she said. ‘What do you do?’

The musicians had started to play, the two lutenists and the oboist exploring an undemanding melody against which the fourth player tapped out a gentle rhythm on her tambourine. The singer, for the moment, sat silently. Her turn would come later, as the party became rowdier. Already several of the guests were drunk; one woman across the room had called for the copper bowl and was vomiting into it, assisted by two girls, their faces masks.

Huy saw Taheb before she saw him. She had appeared at the other side of the room, and was now moving from table to table, talking briefly to all her guests, as servants cleared plates, brought further courses, and replaced the melting scent cones on the heads of the women guests. She was dressed in a richly-patterned blue pleated robe which swept in one line from waist to floor. Her eyes, made up with malachite and galena, looked both larger and darker than he remembered. She wore a large collar which reached from her throat to her breasts, made up of alternating rows of lapis and carnelian beads, counterbalanced by a silver mankhet pendant which hung down her brown back below the rich darkness of her hair. She no longer wore a wig, Huy noticed; and since he had last seen her, her figure had lost its angular thinness. She moved gracefully across the room towards them, including him in a smile which was truly warm, not just social. Could rediscovered happiness make so much difference, so soon, Huy wondered.

She took fresh garlands from a body servant and came over with them, placing one each around the necks of the broker and his wife, Merymose, and, lastly, Huy.

‘I am glad you decided to come,’ she said, in a way that told him that she had expected him not to. ‘I have often thought of you since we last met.’

‘I am glad to see you so well recovered.’

‘It has not been so easy. Aset contested the will.’

‘What did Amotju write?’

‘He left me nothing. Nor the children. It was as if we didn’t exist. Half to his sister, and half to his mistress. As she died with him, Aset wanted to take it all.’

‘Perhaps she was badly advised.’

Taheb looked at him shrewdly. ‘Don’t take her part. I know what she was to you, and how she has treated you.’

Huy spread his hands, found himself smiling. ‘We all have to look after ourselves.’

‘That is true,’ said Taheb, not taking her eyes from his. ‘Still. Aset is a selfish bitch.’

Huy was saved from replying – if a reply was expected – because the broker’s wife had turned grey. She seized the wrist of a passing serving girl. ‘Bring me the copper bowl,’ she commanded unsteadily.

Course followed course with such disregard for economy that no fish, duck or pork was seen, and the wines of Khargs and Dakhla chased down quantities of beef, goose, muttor and egret. Huy, used to poor man’s meat, ate and drank little, and noticed that Merymose and Taheb did the same As the evening progressed, however, the grain broker became more and more effusive; his wife grew increasingly pale and silent. The acrobats, persuaded to stay, entered and performance after the tables had been cleared, though by that time few paid attention to them.

Huy watched the stars in the broad sky beyond the red-and gold columns of the hall as they grew pale, and as finally with infinite slowness at first, the sky lost its blackness and progressed through every shade of grey to lilac-yellow. He shuddered in the dawn. Taheb had left them to make one more round of the tables; the broker and his wife were asleep.

‘Do you want to walk back down with me?’ Merymose asked him.

‘Certainly.’ Huy had no intention of courting a Medjay’s friendship, but he knew the value of allies. The captain’s expression remained enigmatic – doubtless from professional habit. Nevertheless Huy decided to tell him who he was, hoping that here was a man whom, perhaps, he could trust. It would be a risk because the man was bitter about Akhenaten; but what progress was there without risk?

They were about to rise when Taheb’s steward came towards them, a worried expression on his face, leading an equally worried-looking young man, a Medjay constable whose relief when he saw Merymose was apparent.

‘What is it?’ asked the captain.

‘You are needed. I have been sent to collect you. I have horses outside.’

Merymose raised his eyebrows. ‘Horses? What has happened?’

‘Sir, I cannot make my report in front of all these people.’ Half of the guests were drunk, the other half asleep; but the young constable looked at Huy.

The captain turned to him apologetically. ‘Let Taheb know that I have left. I am sorry about our walk.’

‘Yes.’

‘Perhaps there will be another time. I would like to know more about you.’

A warning bell rang in Huy’s heart, but he said, ‘Taheb knows where to find me.’

Merymose turned abruptly and left, attended by the steward and the policeman. At the table, the broker snored gently. His wife stirred in her sleep and turned to face her husband. Sleep had smoothed the stress from her face and she looked much younger – the pursed lips had softened, and the wrinkles on her forehead and by her eyes had relaxed. There was something childlike and vulnerable about her expression, though the sadness remained, speaking to Huy in the cold dawn.

He wondered what business had taken the Medjay away so urgently. To have sent horses indicated something of importance. The animals were rare, and normally reserved for the use of the royal family, the aristocracy, and the small cavalry units of the army.

‘What are you thinking?’ Taheb was standing next to him.

‘The captain has been called away. I was wondering why.’

‘It is a pity.’

‘It is intriguing.’

‘At least you were able to talk to him.’

‘Is that why you invited me?’

Taheb smiled. ‘You’d better take care, or your work will have you questioning everything. We don’t always act with ulterior motives, you know.’

‘I am sorry.’

She laid a hand on his arm. It felt warm, and her touch was positive.

‘But I suppose you are right to wonder why I asked you here, after so long.’ She paused, weighing her words. ‘It is true that I wanted you to meet Merymose. He is an old friend, and a good one. I thought that for you to know one trustworthy man among the Medjays would be helpful.’

Huy looked at her.

‘I have done nothing to help you,’ Taheb continued, with less than her usual confidence. ‘I was not sure how welcome my help would be. Then, after Amotju’s death there was so much to arrange.’

Huy remembered that one of the first things she had done was to settle the fee which he had agreed with her husband. He had wanted to refuse it, but necessity had overridden honour.

‘There will be another chance to meet Merymose and talk properly. Does he know who I am?’

‘I have not told him, but if he is curious he has only to consult the records.’

‘There is no reason for him to suspect that I would be in them.’

‘He is a good policeman. He does not like the political role Horemheb has cast the Medjays in. What did you tell him you do?’

‘That I was in business on my own account. He did not press me.’

‘And if he had?’

‘Then I think I would have told him the truth. You’re a good judge of character, Taheb.’

She squeezed his arm. ‘Don’t think that the only reason for asking you here was to meet Merymose. Come and see me again.’

The sun was touching the edge of the rooftops as Huy descended to the crowded district where he lived, and although in this dead season fewer people were about than usual, the narrow streets were already beginning to come alive. Walking briskly to clear his head, he decided to make a detour down to the harbour to see the obelisk. The stimulation of the evening before, the brief elevation to the life of the rich, being among people again, had now been replaced by anticlimax. There was no one waiting for him, and no one to care whether he worked or not. That there was no work to do lowered him further. He remembered the last days in the old city, when he had loafed around the decaying port aimlessly killing time. It seemed to him that he had got nowhere since then, but Taheb’s invitation, and the meeting with Merymose, had excited his heart: there must have been a reason for this to have happened now: or was Horus simply trying to organise his life for him?

After a week, the obelisk was no longer an object of curiosity. The grain-broker had been right about the log rollers, on which it now rested, but Huy was the only onlooker as a dwarfed group of workmen under an overseer looped a complicated rope harness around the vast hulk. They worked hard and fast, and their task was soon completed. A drover brought up a team often oxen, which was attached by yokes to the towing hawsers, and within half an hour, amid cries and the cracking of whips, the great granite shape started to move forward, shunting over the groaning logs with infinite slowness. A fresh team of men gathered the logs from the rear as they became redundant and hurried to place them under the nose of the obelisk as the oxen, their patient heads held low with effort, steadily plodded across the baked earth of the harbour square.

Huy had been joined by a small group of children, pausing on their way to school, who were dividing their curious stares between the oxen and himself – this unusual man who did not appear to have anything to do. Feeling self-conscious, Huy set off across the square in the same direction as the haulage team, soon overtaking it and disappearing into the labyrinth of little streets to the south, in the midst of which he lived. Already the day was growing hot, and the mixed smells of fish and spices, so familiar that he barely noticed them, rose to greet him.

His house, like those of his neighbours in the block, was two-storeyed and narrow-fronted, with an open roof terrace. It had a yard at the back and – a bonus – faced not another row of similar houses, but a small square. At this time of day it was all but deserted as most of the people who lived in the district worked on the River or in the markets, which meant that they were up and gone before dawn. Those who did not had other work – in the brothels or the food houses – which meant that most of them would not rise before noon. Huy, who had succumbed to consolation since Aset left him, knew some of the girls by now.

He paused at the entrance of the square to look across at his house. It seemed forlorn and closed up, and he considered not going in, but turning right and following the narrow street another two hundred paces to where it opened into another square. There, a shabby acacia-wood door under a faded sign which read ‘City of Dreams’ led to a series of semi-basement rooms. In them, for a price, for a modest kite of silver, you could drink, eat, or make love, at any time. The madam, a forty-year-old Nubian of immense fatness called Nubenehem, had told Huy on his first visit that she was in the business of round-the-clock solace.

But that kind of solace was not much good to Huy anymore; he needed something more substantial: a replacement for Aset, not a substitute. He put the idea away and crossed the square to his home.

Reaching behind the cheap tamarisk door he located the stone bolt and found it already released.

On his guard, he pushed the door inward cautiously and descended the three steps which led directly to the whitewashed living room. A glance around told him that everything was in its place. A low table and three chairs formed the principal furniture, together with a built-in raised-brick dais spread with palm matting and a decorated linen sheet for use as a day bed during the afternoon sleep. The images of Bes and Horus looked down undisturbed from their niches.

Huy stood in the centre of the room, straining his ears to catch any sound from upstairs. None came from above the wooden ceiling, but that did not necessarily prove that there was no one there.

Looking quickly at the steps which led up to the two bedrooms, he moved stealthily past them towards the curtained doorway at the back of the room which led to the kitchen and bathroom beyond. In neither was there any sign of disturbance, though it was clear that both had been used. The limestone washing slab in the bathroom was wet, as was its low surrounding wall. The red pottery water vessels were empty, and a rough linen towel, though neatly folded, had clearly been used. In the kitchen, a crust of herb bread lay on a wooden platter next to an empty beaker which had contained red beer.

Huy was about to check the back yard of the house when a slight sound coming from the living room made him freeze. Someone was descending the stairs. He moved quickly along the short corridor which connected the kitchen with the living room and drew the curtain aside.

The man on the stairs stopped where he was and stared at Huy with a look that was half-furtive, half-beseeching. He was forty years old and tall, with a face that at first sight appeared strong, until one noticed the soft chin and the wide lips, the antelope eyes. Because he had never seen him without the long hair of authority, Huy did not recognise him at first. Now that he did, it was with mixed feelings.

‘Surere.’

‘Yes.’ The old administrator and the former scribe greeted each other with cautious friendliness unsure what roles they were to play now that the authority of the former had gone. It seemed that Surere was toying with the idea of once more asserting the rank he had enjoyed in the City of the Horizon, but if he was, he soon abandoned it. He was nothing more than an escaped prisoner, and he knew nothing of where Huy’s loyalty lay.

Surere put on a smile. ‘I am placing myself at your mercy. I hope my trust is not unfounded.’

‘How did you find me?’ asked Huy.

The tall man shrugged lightly. ‘There was talk in the labour camps that not everyone had been arrested. Minor officials had been let off…’ He let the words hang in the air, regretting having used them, then hurried on to safer ground. ‘And the sailors on the barge knew of a former scribe who had helped break a gang of river pirates. Of course I didn’t know who, and they didn’t know your name. May I come downstairs?’

‘Of course.’ Huy relaxed the threatening posture which he had taken up unawares. More confident now, on legs thin as a stick insect’s, Surere descended into the room.

‘It was truly by the grace of the Aten that the barge I came on docked here,’ Surere went on. ‘I knew that there could be no better place either to hide or to find help than in the Southern Capital.’

‘What will you do?’ Huy said.

He did not want him in his house. A difficult man to get on with, Surere had always been one of the most zealous of Akhenaten’s officials, and at the same time one of the most blindly devoted. This allegiance had been rewarded by the special favour of the Great Queen, Nefertiti, though his adherence to the teaching of the Aten had been genuine and profound, entirely lacking the political motivation of many of his colleagues. That he was homosexual played no role in Huy’s judgment of him, but Surere’s sense of his own rightness had made him many enemies, not least because he was always prepared to sacrifice anyone and anything to his plans, firmly believing that the correctness of his actions justified any means.

‘I have been hiding out for a week, looking for friends who share the old faith. It is hard to ask the right questions, without arousing suspicion, especially when every day you get more tired, dirty and dishevelled; and when your head is shaved and the Med jays are looking out for an escaped political.’

Huy let pass the fact that his own question had gone unanswered. ‘Then you are fortunate to have found me.’

Surere gave him a smile calculated to be disarming. ‘Some sailors at the harbour who work on the gold barges told me where you live. I do not think they were curious about me, but they seemed to hold you in high regard. I came here last night after dark. As you were not at home, I let myself in and bathed and ate. I knew you would not deny such hospitality to an old…friend.’

‘Still, you took a chance. With my life too. If the Medjays had found you here…’

Surere bridled, remembering the difference in their ranks, but even as a rebuke rose to his lips he mastered his anger. It had not escaped Huy, however, and the former scribe had noticed something else.

‘They brand prisoners. You haven’t been branded.’

‘They brand criminals. Not politicals.’

Huy looked at him, thinking about the stonemason the police would kill in five days’ time if Surere were not captured. ‘What are your plans?’ he asked again.

Surere spread his hands. This typical gesture of ordinary Egyptians was odd in one of Surere’s refinement. Perhaps, thought Huy, he has picked up vulgar habits in the prison camps. It was the only explanation, though not one that satisfied him.

‘I need clothes,’ the man was saying. ‘And a wig – a dark, straight one. And I need sandals, and a knife.’

Huy interrupted him. He did not like the imperious tone. That was one thing that had not changed. But still a doubt nagged at him.

‘Where will you go? What will you do?’ he asked.

Surere looked at him keenly, i will make my way to the north-east. There is a sliver of land between the northern shores of the Eastern Sea and the Great Green. I will cross there and continue into the old northern empire.’

Huy looked at him. ‘But that area is lost. It is all in the hands of desert raiders now, and the coast is controlled by the rebels, Aziru and Zimrada.’

‘They cannot cover the whole land. If necessary I will take my people deep into the Northern Desert and establish a colony there.’

‘Your people?’

Surere’s dark eyes blazed. ‘Yes! Do you imagine that we are the only ones left who hold true to the faith of Aten? Oh, I have noticed that you have images of the old gods in your house, but I cannot imagine that you have reverted to them. You have them here for protection.’

He was only partly right. Huy had never quite freed himself of the old beliefs; Bes the Lion-Dwarf, and Horus the Hawk-Headed, Son of Osiris, had always remained secretly in his heart. Perhaps if he was honest with himself their power over him was growing, as the influence of the Aten waned, and because, not long ago, the Horus amulet he wore round his neck had saved his life.

‘Where do you suppose you will find followers? Horemheb has declared the Aten dead.’

Surere sneered. ‘A general cannot command gods. Far to the south, where Horemheb cannot reach, the Temple of the Jewel maintains its worship. And to the north, too, there are outposts. Small centres where the true faith remains strong.’

‘How do you know?’

‘We prisoners get transported from labour camp to labour camp, from quarry to quarry, from oasis to oasis, from mine to mine. News travels with us. They can try to break our resistance; but they will never break our spirit. And there is something else I desire.’

‘What is that?’

Surere smiled. ‘Revenge.’

‘The Aten teaches mercy.’

‘The Aten teaches justice. Where there has been betrayal, there must be retribution. But you are right too. And do not worry. I will not act before I have received my instructions.’

Huy looked at the former district governor warily. His face had grown calmer, and his body was relaxed.

‘Instructions? From whom?’

Surere met his gaze. ‘From God.’

Huy decided to help Surere, though he was unsure of his way in the grey hinterland of religious zeal where the heart is stalked by the beasts of madness. He fed his former master, found fresh clothes for him and, since he wore his own hair himself, paid a visit to the City of Dreams, where he knew no questions would be asked, and persuaded Nubenehem to organise a man’s wig for him. The large Nubian showed only a perfunctory interest in the task, as he had hoped, but her price for fast service was high.

‘Good enough for a noble? Well, it can’t be for you. Anyway, it doesn’t look as if you are going bald.’

‘How much?’

Nubenehem considered. ‘A piece of gold,’ she said.

‘A whole piece?’

She nodded regretfully but deliberately. ‘If you want a good one, and you want it today.’

Huy had wondered whether he should not go to Taheb for help – she had seemed more than friendly the previous evening – but he did not know her as he knew this obese brothel keeper. Taheb was too intelligent not to deduce what a request for a man’s wig meant.

Nubenehem’s professional incuriosity, on the other hand, was unimpeachable.

‘All right,’ he said, knowing that to bargain would be futile.

‘Come back at dusk,’ she said, then added, looking at him directly. ‘Make time to stay if you can. Kafy is free tonight. I know you like her – and I can’t stop her singing your praises.’

* * *

Preoccupied, Huy hurried back up the street to his house, his sandals raising dust. A gaunt cat darted across his path to squeeze itself into the handsbreadth of shadow at the base of a wall as he passed, where it settled, glaring at him with pale eyes, the pupils crocodile slits in the fierce light. He looked up from the animal to see Merymose and three Medjay officers waiting outside his door. Merymose was already looking at him. Somehow he managed not to allow his step to falter, and continued on, neither slackening nor quickening his pace, calculating the time he had to compose himself. It would not take him nearly long enough to cover the thirty paces that separated him from the policemen. People were about, and several cast curious stares at the waiting group; though Huy felt confident that no one had seen or heard Surere in the short time he had been in the house. But Huy had left him sleeping, and nothing would help either of them if the Medjays entered now.

Merymose greeted him neutrally. Huy noted that at least there was no aggression in either his face or his voice, and took brief comfort from that: the captain had not been tipped off. It seemed an eternity since they had parted company – but it had only been at dawn on this same day. The Medjay looked as tired as Huy felt.

‘I had not expected to meet you again so soon.’

‘Nor I.’ Merymose’s tone was severe, but perhaps that had more to do with the official nature of the visit than anything else. Huy wondered about the escort, and how soon it would be before he had to open his door to them.

‘You did not tell me about your past last night,’ continued Merymose.

‘I wasn’t aware that it was something that interested you,’ replied Huy.

‘It could have been embarrassing for me to be seen with a former official of the Great Criminal,’ continued Merymose. ‘Taheb should have warned me.’

‘I am sure she thought we would have things to talk about and that is why she placed us together,’ said Huy. ‘As for me, I have done nothing against the edict which prevents me from working as a scribe. If you have read my records, you will know now that I am kept under supervision for some of the time, and that after all I am a very small splinter in the buttock of the state. I doubt if it notices me at all.’

‘Let us hope that is all you are,’ said Merymose. ‘These men will search your house. It is a matter of routine. The homes of all old servants of the Great Criminal are being searched for any sign of the escaped quarryman-prisoner. My own feeling is that, even if you have helped him, you are far too intelligent to allow a trace of your action to become evident to us.’

‘Then why are you here?’

‘First let these men do their job.’ He indicated the door curtly, the bronze bracelet of office on his wrist glinting dully in the sunshine.

Suddenly aware of a tightening at the base of his sternum, and aware too of the beautiful value of the freedom he was about to lose, Huy opened the door and stood aside. The heat of the sun on his face no longer seemed real. He watched the three policemen file into the house as he might have watched actors. He wondered if he should make the usual offer of bread and beer; but this visit was too stiffly official, and in a moment it would be over. He found himself regretting not getting to know Taheb better, now that the opportunity was there; she might genuinely have helped him. He should have let Surere sink or swim by himself. He should have reported him immediately. Perhaps then he might have been reinstated as a scribe. Perhaps…

They stood opposite each other in the street. Huy looked at the familiar scene as if the gods had suddenly placed an invisible screen between it and himself. Half an hour earlier he had belonged here, had had his place, had been the object of no particular attention. He longed to be left alone with the simple problems of loneliness and unemployment again – the two pebbles that had seemed like boulders. The gaunt cat loped by. He looked at it and could not believe that it was the same animal he had seen minutes earlier. The truth was that he was not the same person. How could such an upheaval happen to him, and his surroundings not change?

Merymose showed no desire to enter the house, but lounged idly, ignoring the stares of the passers-by. He balanced on one foot and pivoted the heel of the other against the ground, his arms folded, his torso bent forward and angled to one side. The question came unbidden into Huy’s heart that this was strange behaviour from a man whose summons to work eight hours earlier had been so urgent that his superiors had sent horses for him; but he thrust that problem aside. What would it matter to him either way, in another minute? Perhaps after all this was the culmination of the work which that summons had set in motion.

Huy looked sharply at the house. How much time had passed since the policemen had gone in? Surely by now they would have found him. Before he could stop it, hope, that insidious and beguiling demon, had risen in his heart. It could not be. It could not. Even if he had gone, Surere would have left some trace: he would not have thought to cover his tracks.

Even as these thoughts clambered over one another in his heart, the first policeman emerged, quickly followed by his two colleagues. They were all young men, perhaps sixteen or seventeen years old, and this business of searching houses, exciting to begin with, had palled. Their faces were tired and dull.

‘Well?’ asked Merymose, going through the form.

‘Nothing, captain.’

Huy was aware that Merymose was looking at him, and forced his expression to stay blank, even relaxed. He knew he was not a good actor and was sure that the effort would show, but Merymose did not react.

He sent the officers on their way, but made no move to leave himself. Immediately Huy prepared himself for a more thorough, more experienced search of the house, one which would reveal – what? Surere had come with nothing, and would have left with nothing, unless he had taken food from the scant store, or located and raided the battered sycamore box containing the handful of copper, gold and silver which remained from Taheb’s fee, and which Huy kept in a hollow behind a loose brick in the wall which ran under the bedhead.

The Medjay appeared to reach a decision. ‘Come with me,’ he said, ‘I want to show you something.’