City of Dreams

SIX

They took the brain from her head with long hooks, delicately drawing the tissue out through her nostrils, and discarding it in a small brazier of red-hot charcoal. The brain was of no importance. Then they used water mixed with vinegar in a syringe to rinse the cavity clear, sitting her up so that the residue could run out through her nose. Afterwards, they carefully cleaned her face before the flies could settle.

The vital organs, the stomach, the intestines, the lungs and the liver, were withdrawn carefully and whole. The embalmers laid her flat on a long wooden table, and one of them, the master, took a sharp flint knife to make a long incision low down in her side. Probing with his narrow hands he located the organs he sought, and, using another slender knife, dislodged and withdrew them, handing them to his assistant, who placed them in bronze trays and took them to another table where he covered them with natron salt, to dry and preserve them ready for the four jars which would stand in a chest at the head of the coffin. Their eternal resting place.

Once he had cleared the body, the master embalmer rinsed it through, first with palm wine, and then with a solution of coriander. He would now dry it in natron, before packing the cavities he had made with linen treated with myrrh and cassia; the nostrils and eyes plugged with linen soaked in resin, and the hair dressed with as much care as for attendance at a royal wedding.

The master embalmer had seven bodies laid out in various stages of the seventy-day preparation for eternity, and the open-ended hall where he worked was crowded. He had employed two extra assistants to keep the flies at bay, and he found he had to force himself not to hurry his craft, not to cut corners. His clients were rich and demanding, and all the more likely to notice a botched job. His hall was built on a north-to-south axis, so that the wind blew through it constantly, keeping the air fresh; but the odours of the spices and scented oils he used were the only ones a visitor might smell. All moisture was drawn out of the dead before they could rot.

It had taken a full day for Merymose to obtain permission for Huy to visit the embalmer. By the time he’d got it, the two dead girls the scribe wanted to see had been joined by this third. Her body had been found the morning before by the side of the pool in the little park on the south side of the royal compound. Now, Huy was visiting the embalmer alone, barely repressing his fury at the delay, but for which a girl’s life might have been saved. Inwardly, too, he cursed the arrogance of the latest victim’s father. Above all he turned his anger towards Kenamun, who, on grounds of security, had forbidden Huy to visit the scene of the third murder when it came to light, where he might have had a chance at last of studying the circumstances of death.

Merymose had already seen the body, but now he had been deputed by an increasingly impatient Kenamun to visit the victim’s parents. The father was a general, a commander of cavalry, and the mother a daughter of the army’s chief supplier of salt. The father had not applied for a Medjay to guard his house, giving as his reason that he had efficient men of his own to do the job.

‘She was called Mertseger,’ the embalmer told Huy as he stood looking down at her. ‘She looks terrible now, but I’m going to put packing in the cheeks to fill them up again after I’ve dried her out. The loss of moisture makes the face cave in, look like a skull. But I’ll give her back her beauty.’

The cavity of her abdomen had dropped alarmingly with the removal of its contents. The dark incision running obliquely from just above her vagina seemed a grosser violation of her corpse than anything inflicted on her in life.

‘Did you notice anything, any wound?’

‘No. And she had never known a man. The skin is unbroken,’ he gestured professionally towards the vagina. ‘I don’t need a doctor to tell me that. Do you want to see?’

‘No.’

‘I’ll stitch it up when she has dried out. We seal all the openings to the body. It is an extra insurance against the maggots. Once the flies have laid their eggs on a body, there’s nothing we can do, so we get that seen to as quickly as possible.’

Huy turned to the two adjoining tables. On the one farthest away lay Iritnefert, her arms at her sides, held there stiffly, as if she wanted to deny the downward pull of the earth. Her head was back and her chin raised, resin plugging the eye sockets. An assistant was carefully applying gold leaf to it. The lack of eyes robbed the face of all the character it had had, of personality, of the vestige of life. Huy hoped that when he died it would be in the desert or on the river, so that the vultures or the crocodiles would take him. He did not like the idea of being closed in a black tomb, though he knew that it would be only his Sahu lying there.

Nevertheless he looked more closely at Iritnefert.

Nothing to tell now of the girl she had been. The nose, dried out, was pitifully thin and pinched. The cheeks, also awaiting padding, had vanished into the cavities of the skull. She looked like a leathery caricature of the old woman she might have become.

‘She’ll look as alive as you or me, once we’ve packed her and made up her face,’ the embalmer reassured him again. ‘Normally we don’t like people to see them at this stage. It’s better that way. It’s better for them to see their loved ones as they remember them.’

Huy looked at the man. They were about the same age, but the embalmer seemed older. His hands were soft and wrax-like from frequent washing. He was of medium height, and had regular, even features of the kind which are instantly forgettable. His dark face was framed by raven-black hair so perfectly cut that it barely changed its set as he moved. His expression was one of amused and slightly sinister detachment, which reminded Huy strangely of the young king’s. You could imagine Tutankhamun sparing a man on the point of execution, or ordering the death of thousands, without the slightest twitch of an eye muscle.

‘I want to see the second one – Neferukhebit,’ said Huy briskly. He had had enough of carrying on at a snail’s pace. If toes had to be trodden on, too bad. Merymose might get it in the neck from Kenamun, but if this madman was to be nailed quickly, the odd official would have to sacrifice his dignity.

The embalmer sniffed primly. ‘That is impossible. As you can see.’

High walls of planking surrounded the body on the second table, forming a trough at the bottom of which the body lay. Into this natron salt had been poured, covering the corpse completely.

‘How long does this take?’ Huy insisted impatiently.

‘It depends on the weather, on the time of year, on the size of the body. In this case, not more than thirty days – forty at the most.’

‘And how long has it been so far?’

The embalmer consulted the writing on a limestone flake attached to the edge of the trough. He tutted, sucked his teeth.

‘How much difference would it make if you cleared this away for a few minutes – that’s all?’ persisted Huy. it is important that I see her.’

‘I’ve told you; it’s impossible. Nobody has ever suggested anything of the sort ever before. It is unheard of.’ The embalmer was shocked.

Huy forced himself to stay patient. ‘I imagine it is impossible for just anyone to come in here to see your work, as I have?’

‘Quite impossible.’

‘And you know that I am only here because I have royal authority?’

‘Yes.’

‘That authority is given me to help me find the killer of these girls.’

The embalmer looked uncomfortable, and wiped the back of his neck with a cloth. His assistants looked across with studiously blank faces as Huy began to raise his voice. The embalmer himself eyed him more nervously. This stocky little man, whose educated voice belied his riverman appearance, looked capable of doing damage. The embalmer glanced to check how close he was to a narrow shelf on which a series of knives were arranged in orderly rows.

‘It is not just me you will be obstructing when you object to my seeing her body.’

‘But to interrupt the process – ‘

‘For a few minutes?’

‘It has never been done before. I don’t know what the effect will be. I’d need the parents’ permission.’

Huy had had enough. ‘You have it,’ he lied firmly.

‘In writing?’

Huy growled, taking a step forward. ‘You doubt my word? I’m an officer of the court.’

Still doubtful, the embalmer beckoned his assistants away from their other tasks. He was probably thinking that in these times it was not worth taking the risk of offending anyone, just in case they were agents of Horemheb and you ended up in an emerald mine on the Eastern Coast. Together, the three of them removed the boards which formed the trough and the natron ran off in a tide of white powder on to the floor. Huy noticed the desiccated corpse of a shrew which must have fallen in when the stuff was first poured over Neferukhebit.

She emerged like a piece of sculpture from the white tide – the first woman, born of rock. Fussily, the embalmer dusted the remains of the salt from her body. The last of it to come away was damp, and a faint odour of sweet mustiness clung to it. Huy was surprised that it was not more unpleasant.

‘Quickly,’ said the embalmer.

Huy looked at her, reaching over to brush a last detail of natron away from her face.

Already the features were changing as moisture was drawn out of the flesh, but remembering how Iritnefert had looked when he had first seen her, he could understand how the two girls could be confused. They might have been twins. And, he reflected, the same innocence, the same near-perfect regularity of feature, was shared by Mertseger, who lay two paces away in the patience of death, awaiting her preparation for the Fields of Aarru.

‘I need to look at her back,’ he said after several minutes of carefully examining the girl’s body.

‘That is impossible.’

Huy dismissed the embalmer with a look and abruptly motioned to the two assistants. ‘Come on. She can’t be heavy.’

The assistants looked from Huy to their chief, who nodded assent. It was a more difficult job than they had imagined, because of the stiffness of the limbs, but by holding the head and the ankles they managed it. Huy looked carefully at the girl’s back, and found what he was seeking. If only Nubenehem remembered it, then at least he could establish for certain which girl had been at the City of Dreams. If whoever had killed her had also seen her there, and could be identified…Well, it would be progress, of a sort.

He nodded his thanks and the men laid her back on the table. The embalmer helped them replace the planks, and then fussed about whether to sweep up and re-use the original natron, or replace it with fresh salt. While he was deliberating, another thought suddenly struck Huy, and he leant over the edge of the trough, feeling the girl’s stomach and breasts.

‘What are you doing?’ the embalmer asked, outraged.

Huy felt under the small breasts and raised them. Under the left, just visible, was a minute puncture. Quickly, he moved across to Iritnefert’s body. The skin under the breasts had puckered and darkened, and it was impossible to see anything. He made his way back past Neferukhebit to where Mertseger lay. Under her left breast, whose pale skin was only just beginning to give up its bloom to death, was a tiny, dark-red blob, no bigger than a sand flea.

Armed with his new knowledge, Huy hastened back to the centre of the capital, but Merymose was not to be found. As it was possible that the Medjay had left word at his house, Huy went home. There was no message from the police captain, and he was on the point of leaving again for the City of Dreams when a rickshaw, its linen sunscreens pulled down around the passenger seat, rushed into the square and stopped by him, blocking his path.

Surere was already looking sleeker, Huy thought, as he tried to banish the servile feelings which still rose to the surface when he found himself in the company of his former superior. Surere, presumably, had sent for him because he needed his help; why was it, then, that he gave the impression of bestowing a favour?

‘It was a risk, sending a letter to my house,’ said Huy.

Surere spread his hands. ‘It would have been a greater one to have visited you in person. And the boy who served as my messenger is illiterate – a rare gift in a servant.’

Huy pursed his lips. He had never liked the nakedness with which Surere used people. Even less did he like the way in which people continued to be taken in by him. He remembered asking a fellow scribe about this, years ago, as they stood in one of the sun-filled courtyards of the Great Archive at Akhetaten.

‘I can’t stand his lordliness; but I admire his moral stance; and the first is always the servant of the second,’ the other scribe had explained serenely, fuelling Huy’s dislike. Still, Huy had answered Surere’s summons, had even given in to the messenger’s insistence that they travel in the closed rickshaw, so that he would not be able to tell where they were going. They had gone on for a long distance, before arriving at a door in a long, anonymous wall; the letter bearer, a gloomily serious young man with eyebrows which met across his brow, maintaining a severe silence throughout the journey. And now this room.

‘You haven’t said what you want.’

‘That would have been foolish, in such a letter.’ The bantering tone remained in Surere’s voice but he added edge to it for the last word or two. Huy felt himself warned. By this man who had no power over him and whom he could sink with one word to Merymose. But treachery was not in Huy’s blood. He looked around the miserable room in which they were standing: a low, dark, cramped place with a grudging little window through which thin light crept apologetically. It fell on a rough table and two stools. On the table were a jug of water and two wooden beakers, together with a small bowl of salt and a cob of dark bread. The walls were unpainted, mud-brown, and bare of any decoration or shelf. No table stood by the plain low bed in the corner, the only other piece of furniture in the room.

‘How long have you been here?’ asked Huy.

‘Thirty days.’

‘And how long will you stay?’

‘Until I am ready to leave. My preparations are well advanced; but there has been other business to attend to here.’

‘What?’ Huy tried to keep the sharpness out of his voice. He regretted the abruptness of the question, but Surere did not appear to have noticed.

‘Simply the question of funds. Even here, I have found there are those who remain loyal to the New Thinking. I am surprised you do not know of them.’

Surere had managed to obtain a wig that rose high on the crown and fell heavily over the back and shoulders. It was raven black and the hair was entwined with a slim rope of gold thread and opals. He wore a light yellow tunic which reached the knee, and on his feet were leather sandals with decorated metal buckles. Whoever was looking after Surere was not short of money, however simply the man was lodged.

‘You are admiring my finery,’ smiled Surere.

‘Your source of funds is a rich one.’

‘There are men here who remember me, who owe me favours and do not forget.’

Huy wondered if the community which was supporting Surere was less one that adhered to the New Thinking in secret than one which simply shared his sexual habits. The Black Land had never condemned men or women who loved their own kind, or those who crossed the frontiers between loving those of the same and the opposite sex; but minorities formed fraternities, and members of the clubs would do each other good turns when they could. Harbouring an escaped political of Surere’s importance, though, hardly came under the banner of simple mutual back-scratching.

‘I am surprised that you do not have more enemies than friends here.’

Surere smiled. ‘Does it amuse you to state the obvious? Luckily I have many loyal friends here – more, perhaps, than you do. And in places you would least suspect.’

‘You are more fortunate than most of the survivors of the City of the Horizon,’ said Huy. ‘More fortunate than I am, or Paheri, for example.’

Surere’s eyes gave away his thought before he could stop them. ‘What do you know of Paheri?’

‘Is he here? Ipuky is a powerful man – he could have extended his protection to his son.’

‘Paheri is dead.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Do not talk of him. To speak his name invites evil.’

‘That is not the belief of one who trusts the Aten.’

‘Do not talk of him, Huy.’ Surere’s voice was serious, beseeching.

‘And yet you live like this,’ remarked Huy, indicating the room, forced to let the question of Paheri hang in the air. The former nomarch’s panic at the mention of his old deputy’s name was a lead of sorts, but it was a fish that would have to be played.

Surere’s gaze became hard. ‘Yes. It is necessary. Don’t forget that I am in hiding. I cannot start to live again as I used to.’ He broke off, and when he spoke again, his tone had changed. It was as if two Kas battled for control of him.

‘There is another reason,’ he continued in a softer voice. ‘I need to harden myself for my new destiny.’

‘For the desert?’ asked Huy cautiously.

‘Yes.’ Huy saw that Surere spoke with absolute seriousness. He thought again about how the changes which had occurred in the Southern Capital, to which Surere had now been exposed after so long away, might have affected such an inflexible heart.

‘But your time in the quarries must have strengthened your muscles.’

‘That is true. But my resolve must also be disciplined. Before my fall, when I was a great man, I was tempted by meat and wine, and by the luxuries my position brought me. But these things belong to the past. I have a new mission.’ Surere leant forward and his head, for the first time, was fully illuminated by the narrow shaft of light that fell through the window. His face was set. There was not a trace of irony in his expression and in his eyes Huy discerned a coldness and distance he had not noticed before.

‘What is it?’ he asked, more cautiously.

‘To bring our people back to the innocence they enjoyed under the old king.’

‘That is dangerous talk. And was it ever innocence?’

‘The tree was destroyed before it could bear fruit!’ shouted Surere, gripping the edge of the table and half rising from his seat. He quickly controlled himself, however, and continued more calmly. ‘That is why I asked you to meet me. You could help me. You could be my lieutenant.’

Huy said nothing, pausing a fraction too long, seeking some reply.

‘You hesitate?’ persisted Surere. ‘I thought you were still one of us!’

‘I do not know what I believe,’ said Huy. ‘The New Thinking touched the elite. It made no difference to the people. Now, the Northern Empire is lost, and the Black Land is in a chaos it has not known since Nebphetyre Amosis, two hundred years ago!’

‘Do you think any of this would have happened if Akhenaten had not been thwarted? If it hadn’t been for the machinations of Horemheb…’

Surere broke off in fury. Huy looked round instinctively. His former colleague had been speaking loudly, and his talk was treasonable. He did not have time now to investigate his own feelings, but somewhere at the back of his mind was the thought that he was, himself, no idealist. He had to live with things as they were, and his work, as far as it existed, was on the plane of helping individuals who had to live, as he did, in the society which existed. The idea of going into the deserts of the north to found a new religious colony had no attraction for him, and he was beginning to think that, for all the patina of civilisation which he had reassumed, Surere’s years of imprisonment had cost him his reason. Who was protecting him? If they did not know all of his plans, they would be placing themselves in great danger. If they did know, then perhaps they intended to follow Surere into the desert.

‘When do you intend to leave?’

‘Soon.’

‘When?’

Surere looked at him for a long time. ‘Despite your apostasy,’ he said finally, his mouth twisted bitterly, ‘I do not think you will betray me. Perhaps it is simply that you do not have the courage to do so. But I will trust you, because there are few with whom I can talk as I can talk to you. And perhaps what I tell you will, even now, change your mind. Do not be a disappointment to me, Huy.’

His tone had changed again, and now he spoke like a worried father who still lives in hope for his son. Huy saw that to play along was the only way to get more information, and Surere had mentioned the protection of innocence as the mainstay of his creed often enough now for the scribe to make connections, though they were as yet half-formed, and his heart was inclined, at their birth, to reject them as falling too pat. Had not Paheri broken with his master for relaxing his severity, though?

‘Tell me,’ he asked, feigning submission.

Surere looked at him searchingly before, satisfied that he could place his trust here, and also in need of an audience, he began:

‘Think of our Great Queen, Nefertiti.’

Huy recalled that magnificent woman. The gentle, careful, intelligent eyes that gave nothing away while leaving you with the impression that you and what you were saying were the most intelligent things she had ever beheld and heard. Even the fine portrait bust they had made of her did no justice to her living beauty.

‘She was taken away too early in the Boat of the Night.’ The queen had been twenty-two.

‘Her life here was fulfilled,’ said Huy, repeating the stock formula.

‘You cannot say that! I knew her better than anyone but the king. I was devoted to her, and she rewarded my devotion with her trust.’

Huy pictured the neglected tomb in the Valley, and wondered if Surere was thinking of it too.

‘She had seven daughters by the king,’ continued Surere. ‘Seven daughters and no sons. And yet he never sought another Great Wife. He knew the fruit of their loins was ordained by Aten. Seven vessels of purity, destined to bear great children, to carry the New Thinking throughout the world, even beyond the Great Green, and south beyond the forests to the sea again.’

Huy looked at him. Beyond the Great Green and the lands to the north of it, he knew, was the world’s end. A rocky coast, a scattering of wild islands.

The forests to the south had never been crossed. The world’s end lay there too.

‘And what has happened to them?’ Surere went on.

The last princess had been born too soon and too tiny to live. The oldest, whom the king her father had also married, later took as her husband his successor, Smenkhkare. The second daughter had died in childhood; the fifth and sixth princesses, still children, were virtual prisoners of Horemheb in the royal palace of the Southern Capital, together with their aunt Nezemmut, Nefertiti’s younger sister; and though treated with all the deference their rank demanded, they were never allowed anywhere unattended by a corps of Horemheb’s own men.

The fourth sister, the one who had found the child in a basket on the banks of the river, and insisted on adopting him, had married Burraburiash of Babylon and long since left the Black Land. Her adopted son Ra-Moses was now a junior officer in the Army of the Northern Frontier.

‘One of them is married to our present king,’ Huy said quietly. The third sister, Ankhsenpaaten, had been given as a child bride to Tutankhaten. When he became pharaoh, they changed their names in honour of the Old Religion – he to Tutankhamun, she to Ankhsenpaamun. The old god of the Southern Capital, Amun, with his wife Mut the Vulture and his son Khons the Moon Sailor, had returned in triumphant trinity.

‘Yes!’ said Surere bitterly. ‘And see how she has rewarded the memory of her father. It would be better if she had died.’

‘You cannot say that.’

‘I can! I can say it with authority.’

‘Whose?’

Surere’s voice dropped. ‘I will tell you. The king’s.’

Huy looked at him closely, unsure how to react, even what to think. Surere was returning his gaze out of candid, friendly eyes; convinced eyes. The eyes of a madman.

‘On the authority of which king?’ asked Huy carefully, not wanting to break the fragile atmosphere.

‘Akhenaten.’ Surere’s stare did not waver. It became more triumphant. ‘You see? He has not abandoned us. Huy, abandon your cynicism. Do not go back to the old gods.’

Huy sat fixed to his stool, his heart still. It could be that the king had returned. But why now? And why to Surere?

‘You are sure?’ He knew how banal the question was as soon as he had asked it, but it did not affect Surere’s mood. ‘I am as sure of it as I am of this water.’

‘What did he look like?’

Surere made a gesture of impatience. ‘Like himself. Do you think I only saw his Ba? Do you think the king would have a mere Ba? A little feathered thing with a human head? No, it was himself, in his body, the Eight Elements reunited.’

‘Where did you see him?’

Surere suddenly looked crafty. ‘Too many questions, little brother. No; now it is for me to speak and you to listen.’ Huy spread his hands submissively, but then winced in pain as Surere suddenly leant forward and seized his shoulder, the strength of ten men in his large, bony hand.

‘His daughter has disappointed him; that is why she has no children,’ continued Surere. ‘That was the first thing he told me. He is distressed by what the Black Land has become, so soon after his departure for the Fields of Aarru. That is why he cannot rest there. He hears the voice of his people constantly, calling him. And now he has returned to help them, through his chosen disciples.’

Surere stopped, to see what effect his words were having on Huy. Huy sat in silence, hoping that his expression betrayed nothing of his thoughts.

‘My own instincts were correct, little brother,’ continued Surere, repeating the term of endearment. ‘I had strayed from the path of true justice, and used people for my own ends. I see now how wrong I was, and yet when I told the king that without resorting to such action I would still be in the granite quarries and so unable to do his bidding, he understood and forgave me. I even believe he sent Khaemhet the boatman to be my lover and my liberator.’ He paused for a moment, looking past Huy’s shoulder, far away, before continuing, but without releasing his tenacious grip.

‘I was right about the Black Land. Without the moral strength of the New Thinking it will fall back into the old corruption. Imagine, Huy. For two thousand years we lived in darkness. The light dazzled us for a bare ten years with its brilliance, before it was extinguished. Our task is to rekindle it. Will you not help me?’

He paused again, this time clearly waiting for an answer. ‘Gladly,’ replied Huy cautiously. ‘But my place is not in the desert. Surely, there is work to do here too.’

Surere made a dismissive gesture with one elegant arm. ‘The capitals are doomed. This Southern Capital especially, the seat of – I can barely bring myself to utter the name – Amun, the False One, the Pretender. It is a city of futile dreams, my friend. And without the True Light, the Black Land is doomed.’

‘And the king told you all this?’ Huy felt cold. Outside, the sun still shone, though with the approach of evening the light had lost some of its force and the room grew dimmer. It was cold here. He watched a lizard scuttle furtively along the join between wall and ceiling, and disappear into a crevice.

To Huy’s relief, his shoulder was released. It throbbed. He wanted to rub it, but the balanos for the bruise that would grow there would have to wait until later. ‘I offered him my thoughts. I opened my heart to him, and he gave me his blessing.’

‘Did he give you any…orders?’

For a moment, Surere was confused; then his expression cleared. ‘He will, in his time.’

‘And where will he give you them? In the desert?’

‘If he chooses. He smiles on my plan.’

‘You have collected followers, I suppose?’

Surere looked at him serenely. ‘I will found my community. Then they will come. The king will help me.’

Huy looked at him. ‘I have a last question.’

‘Yes?’

‘Why did you leave my house? Did you know the Med jays would come?’

Surere smiled. ‘I did not need the king’s guidance for that. I knew they would arrive sooner or later. I saw them watching your house and I escaped through the back. Prison teaches you cunning.’

The same covered rickshaw took Huy back to the city. Once more, Huy had no opportunity to see out, but guessed from the number of twists and turns it made that they were taking a deliberately tortuous route. Once more, he was accompanied by the taciturn messenger. When the rickshaw came to a halt, it was not at his house, but at the deserted harbour.

Huy understood why he had been dropped here, from where a large number of roads led off back to the various parts of the city, but guessed that they had underestimated his knowledge of the twisting muddle of streets that formed the harbour quarter. He had no doubt that he would be able to keep pace with the rickshaw and follow it wherever it went, even now, when the descending darkness created streets of shadow where there were none in reality, and when the eye played tricks on the heart.

The messenger moved so fast that Huy barely saw the club as it swung through the air at his throat. The force of the blow caught him squarely and sent him sprawling, gasping for breath, temporarily blinded, rolling in the dust. Spitting and spluttering, forcing his flailing hands and knees to get a grip on the earth and push him back upright, he heard the rushing creak of the rickshaw’s wheels and the patter of feet as the haulier sped off into the night.

By the time he had got to his feet and turned round, the square was empty again. Evidently Surere’s caution was still one step ahead of his madness.

Huy wanted a bath, to wash the fatigue away, and put some order into his thoughts. It seemed several days since he had seen the girls’ bodies in their mockery of repose at the embalmer’s shed that morning. As for Surere, Huy had surrendered to the thought that the man had left the Southern Capital long ago. The discovery that he was still here, that his heart had found time, in that sinister cell he inhabited, to entrench itself in the obsessions of his lifetime, and that he believed himself to be in contact with the ghost of the dead king, were complications Huy could have done without. He could not admit to his own heart that Surere was involved with the girls’ killings; though perhaps – the dark thought was there – Huy was afraid to admit such a thing was possible, as he would then, however innocently, have played a part in their deaths.

There remained the question about whether to tell Merymose that he had seen Surere. If he were captured, the former district governor would be executed, by the cruellest method prescribed in the Black Land: impaling. Whatever their differences, could Huy hold himself responsible for sending him to such an end? He found himself glad that he did not know the location of Surere’s hide-out.

Huy made his way home, but, still finding no message there, he forced himself to set off again, heading for the City of Dreams. He would talk to Nubenehem about his discovery of that morning. If he drew a positive result from his questions, he would have something else to tell the policeman, as well as the manner in which he believed the victims had been killed.

But as he walked, he became more and more convinced that he would also have to tell him about Surere. Would Merymose believe that he had no idea of the man’s whereabouts now?

‘Are you here for business or pleasure?’ scowled Nubenehem from the couch where she appeared to live. Rolls of dark fat lolled over the little sofa’s back and sides. More than ever, it seemed to have become a part of her body.

‘Business.’

‘I see. So, not my business then. My business is your pleasure. You should take some. You didn’t spend any time at all with Kafy last time you were here.’

‘How is she?’

Nubenehem scowled. ‘She’s gone.’

Huy was surprised. ‘Why?’

‘None of your business.’

‘I noticed she was badly bruised. Was it a client she didn’t like?’

‘I said it’s none of your business.’

‘Where has she gone?’

Nubenehem looked at him. ‘You’re really concerned, aren’t you? Well, don’t worry. She’s gone back to her village, near Saqqara. But not forever. She hasn’t been killed, like those rich tarts the whole town’s gossiping about.’

Huy felt an emptiness in his stomach. He had been concerned for Kafy; more than he would have thought, for someone whose interest in him stretched no further than his wallet.

Nubenehem was in a bad mood, reaching for her liquor jar and belching. A stale smell hung in the air. ‘So, what do you want? If all you want to do is talk, there are plenty of other places you can go. Bees don’t make honey by talking.’

‘I want to ask you about Nefi.’

The woman’s eyes became clever. ‘What about her?’

‘Has she been back?’

‘No. Anyway, I thought you found her.’

‘I lost her again.’ Obviously the town gossip had not revealed who had been killed.

Nubenehem relaxed. ‘There’s plenty of girls besides her and Kafy. I might take you on myself.’

‘Oh yes. And Min’s erection’s gone soft, too.’

Nubenehem cackled. ‘You shouldn’t talk about the gods like that.’

‘About Nefi,’ Huy continued, carefully.

‘I haven’t seen her.’

‘I wondered – something about her – something you might remember.’

‘You described her to me. That was her. Little slut, all puppy fat and innocence. You should have heard the way she talked. I tell you, she even shocked me.’

‘But she was a good looker, wasn’t she?’

‘Plump little lips. Cheeky little tongue. Give a man the best kind of pleasure he’d get this side of the Fields of Aarru.’

‘Pity you never saw her naked.’

Nubenehem was getting careful again: ‘What are you driving at, Huy? Of course I saw her naked. She wanted to work here.’

‘Did anyone else see her?’

‘Couple of the clients. Whistled. Told them she wasn’t on the market yet.’

‘You never got her full name?’

‘No.’

‘One thing I’ll always remember about her – that little cat tattoo just above her navel.’

Nubenehem clammed up. ‘We’re not talking about the same girl.’

‘Oh?’

‘Nefi had a tattoo all right – they all do – but it wasn’t a cat, and it wasn’t anywhere near her navel. It was a scorpion, and it was on her shoulder blade.’

‘Oh,’ said Huy, certain of Nefi’s identity now. ‘Can’t have been the same girl then.’

He turned to go, but halted at the door.

‘Where did Kafy get that bruise?’

‘I told you – ‘

‘I know. None of my business. But I’ve got friends in the police now. Merymose. Heard of him? I could get you closed down. Who was that client I saw in here? The richly-dressed one who paid you over the odds?’

Nubenehem started to sweat, and half rose.

‘Don’t call out the cavalry,’ said Huy. ‘That’ll only make things worse. Who was it?’

Nubenehem was silent, but there was a hint of fear in her eyes.

‘You put on a show for him, didn’t you? A special show. With Kafy. That’s how she got that bruise. And that’s why she’s left. She didn’t want any more. But you don’t have a licence to operate that kind of brothel. Now, who was he?’ Finally the fat Nubian looked at him. ‘Don’t give me any trouble, Huy. We’ve known each other for a long time.’

‘Who was he?’

‘You can have any girl you like, free.’

‘Who was he?’

She spread her hands, but her look was defiant. ‘All right! He was someone from the palace compound. I don’t know why he decided to come here, but they do, now and then, and he paid well. You’re right. Things got out of hand.’

‘His name.’

‘He didn’t give it.’

Huy was not sure if she was lying or not, but she read his thoughts and continued, ‘Even if I knew it I wouldn’t give it to you – and you may have enough clout to shut me down, but even Merymose couldn’t reach high enough to touch him.’

‘What did he do to Kafy?’

She spat out the words. ‘Nothing. He just watched.’