City of Dreams

SEVEN

‘With a needle?’ asked Merymose, intrigued.

‘Yes. Or something similar. A very fine knife, perhaps, or even an embalmer’s chisel,’ replied Huy.

‘But how can he have done it? There wasn’t any sign that any of the girls struggled.’

‘What do you think?’

Merymose spread his hands. ‘That they didn’t want to struggle?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you mean they were drugged?’

‘It might have been simpler than that. They might have trusted him.’

‘What, to stick a knife in their heart?’

Huy shrugged. ‘They might have been embracing. Perhaps the furthest idea from their hearts was that they were going to be attacked.’

‘But why?’

‘If we knew the answer to that!’

‘But there might be no motive at all. Where would that leave us?’

‘Oh,’ said Huy. ‘I think there’s a motive. However strange it is, I think there’s a motive.’

‘The only thing that’s consistent is the way these girls have been killed.’

‘There is much more,’ said Huy, convinced that Merymose must have seen the other similarities too. ‘They all come from similar backgrounds, they all live within the palace. They’re all the daughters of rich officials. They’re all the same age. They all had…a look of innocence.’

Merymose looked uncomfortable. ‘But what about their characters? Iritnefert was a firebrand, but she hadn’t done anything. Neferukhebit, well, if what you say is true…’ his voice trailed off.

‘I think it’s true. The brothel keeper had no reason to lie to me, and I’ve talked to the other clients who saw her there.’

‘How could she want to do such a thing?’ Merymose’s voice was harsh.

Huy looked at him. ‘You have been through enough to know what this world is like.’

‘I think of my own daughter. She never had a chance to grow up, either.’ Merymose looked at Huy. ‘I am going to destroy this spawn of Set.’

Huy had delayed telling Merymose about Surere, waiting for the right moment to come. Now he wondered if he had left it so late that he would arouse the man’s enmity. There was something else. Merymose clearly had orders to ignore any trail that led to the palace compound. It would be unwise, therefore, to say anything to him of what he had learned about Ipuky’s sons from his first marriage, or about the other visitor to the City of Dreams. But yes, he would tell the policeman about Surere now. Then at least the responsibility would be shared.

‘What about the third girl?’ he asked first. ‘Mertseger. What have you been able to find out from the parents?’

‘Very little. They know of nothing. Certainly no lover. To talk to them, you would think she had still been playing with toys. She was their only surviving child. They were old when they had her.’

‘There is something I must tell you,’ said Huy, tensing himself. ‘Something I have not told you, which I should have done. I should have told you days ago.’

Merymose looked at him. ‘That surprises me.’

Huy squared his shoulders. How could he explain his feelings, his reservations, and the reasons for them? Would Merymose, who had been so badly let down by Akhenaten himself, be able to feel any sympathy at all? He might simply view as collusion what Huy saw as loyalty. And now there was another doubt: the new element which Surere had introduced – contact with the ghost of the dead king – was not only the one which had triggered Huy’s decision to tell Merymose all he knew; but also the one which might exempt Surere from any blame. If the former administrator had gone mad, then the passion that possessed him had more to do with the re-establishment of the New Thinking in a new place, rather than any desire for vengeance. Surere, however cunning and even ruthless his instinct for self-preservation made him, might also be an innocent.

If he had not gone mad, but was really in touch with the ghost of the old king … Well, there were precedents for such things; and if ever a monarch might not rest peacefully in the Fields of Aarru, that man was Akhenaten.

Huy conveyed this as best he could. For most of the time he was talking, Merymose’s expression remained set. Huy found himself wishing that he were able to read some comment on the policeman’s face – anger or disapproval might have been easier. To his own distress, he realised that he was in danger of abandoning his self-reliance, and making a friend of Merymose.

Coming to the end of his account, he remembered the fate of the mason-overseer, Khaemhet, held responsible for the security of the prisoners deputed to him for the journey from the granite quarries to the Southern Capital. The obelisk was nearly completed, and a place had been prepared for it near the south pylon of the Temple of Ptah; the barge which had brought it had long since returned to the quarries upriver. But what had become of Khaemhet?

‘He was executed,’ Merymose told him coldly, leaving Huy with an extra burden on his conscience; though in this case the burden was easier to bear, since Huy, given the choice, would never have put the interests of the prisoner below those of the jailer.

‘Would you recognise the house again?’ was all Merymose asked.

Huy shook his head. ‘It was a door like a thousand others in a wall like a thousand others.’

‘A man like you might have looked through the screens of the rickshaw; might have counted the time it took to reach the place, calculated the direction in which you were taken.’

Huy took the criticism in silence. It was true that he was more than capable of all that; what was more, the measures Merymose described were ones which he would usually have taken instinctively. He had deliberately laid them aside this time, though he had not been aware of any direct instruction from his heart to do so.

‘When I went to him, I had no idea that what he would say to me might bring him within the sphere of our investigation.’

‘Even though he is obsessed by an ideal of innocence? Even though he sees the parents of these dead children as traitors to his cause? Even though he has spoken to you of vengeance?’

‘I cannot associate what he said with the action of killing. His obsession is to form a community loyal to the Aten, away from this city. He rejects us and our values.’ Huy had spoken his last words quite automatically; but their utterance made him realise in what world he now lived.

‘We must find him,’ insisted Merymose. ‘I do not share your instincts. It hasn’t escaped anyone’s notice that a former senior official of the Great Criminal goes on the run, and at the same time a series of murders begins of the children of other former officials of the Great Criminal. Kenamun is baying for blood.’

‘Well, now you have some bones to throw him,’ countered Huy. ‘We know how the girls were killed; that they must have known or at least trusted their killer. If it is no demon, we know that his motives are not robbery or sex. Some strange ideal moves him.’

‘Some strange ideal moves Surere,’ said Merymose crisply. ‘My heart tells me we need look no further than him.’

Merymose did not involve Huy in the search that followed. He did not explain why, and this placed a distance between them. Huy knew that it was because the policeman could trust him only so far after his confession. He wondered how much had been passed on to Kenamun, though it was unlikely that Merymose had told the priest everything. Merymose did not like Kenamun, neither did he trust him; and if the case were solved, Kenamun would take the credit.

But his confession to Merymose had a positive effect too, because permission was granted to the former scribe to talk to the bereaved families within the palace compound.

Huy took this to mean that Merymose still needed his help. He might be able to elicit information from the families which the policeman had missed; but he had reckoned without the gulf between granting permission to interview, and the families’ readiness to talk. His own association with the court of the Great Criminal was not a secret, least of all to these people, and their attitude to him was one which Merymose had no power to influence.

‘Of course I’ll help,’ said Taheb. ‘I have been ready to ever since you began this.’

‘Can you arrange for me to see the parents?’

‘That will not be difficult. When?’

‘As soon as possible. But they will object to seeing me.’

‘Not if you come with me. And I will send letters ahead. They will not refuse. They remember favours owed to my father and to my father-in-law. I will take you this evening. In the cool of the day. Let me write the letters now. Then we will wait for their reply.’

Later, Taheb raised herself on one elbow and let her hand slide along his thigh. They lay together in the same blue-white room, though this time their lovemaking had been gentler and more familiar, as warmth and exploration of each other’s bodies and hearts had succeeded the glorious frenzy of their first coupling. This time, they had not needed the stimulus of an aphrodisiac. Huy felt he could get drunk on the smell of Taheb, sinking his lips into the base of her neck where it joined the shoulder. Now, re-aroused, he curled his body to hers and slid into her lazily, as they lay side by side. They kept their eyes open, to see into one another’s hearts.

Afterwards, they were washed by Taheb’s body servants, and dressed in visiting robes. By dint of some speedy alterations by Taheb’s dressmaker, Huy was able to wear a kilt and shirt that had belonged to Taheb’s late husband, his friend Amotju. He ran his hand over the clothes. It was a strange sensation to have them on – more intimate than sleeping with his widow.

They rode into town in her finest litter, crowded with cushions covered in a rich fabric from a country undreamed of, far to the north at the edge of the world, on the other side of the Great Green, and covered with a canopy of light linen cross-threaded with blue and gold. The messenger sent ahead had ensured that there would be no difficulty in entering the palace compound, and the guards at the gate did no more than salute as the litter passed within the walls.

‘They are prepared for more than just a social call,’ Taheb said. ‘It will be interesting to see what excuses they offer for not having seen you before.’

‘I didn’t get beyond the major domos,’ said Huy.

Mertseger’s father, the general in command of cavalry, was a stocky man like Huy. He was sixty, and the muscle on his chest and arms had gone to flab. The gold bracelets he wore were too small, and bit into his forearms. He was lavish in his grief, his eyes still red-rimmed from tears and sleeplessness, and although he was polite to Huy, he barely seemed aware of who the scribe was. He spoke of nothing so much as his guilt at having depended only upon his own staff for security. Old Mahu, the gatekeeper who had slept on the night of Mertseger’s disappearance, had been dismissed without a pension, but that action had done nothing to mollify the general’s conscience. ‘Had she been seeing anybody?’ Huy persisted.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean a man – or any companion.’

‘She had her friends, but they met during the day. They often went to the park to sit by that lake.’

‘Might someone she knew have made a date with her at night?’

The general looked at him uncomprehendingly. ‘Why would she go there?’

‘She was found there.’

‘That is what I cannot understand,’ the general had turned in upon himself again, hardly aware of the presence of his guests any more. ‘Perhaps it is a judgment on me.’

Huy exchanged a glance with Taheb. ‘Why?’

The large, wet eyes were full of suspicion and dislike. ‘Who are you, again?’

‘I am trying to find out what happened. I am working for Kenamun’

The look turned to triumph. ‘And do you have children?’

‘Yes, but not here.’

‘Distance will not save them, if you are as I am.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We both served the Great Criminal.’ His eyes suddenly narrowed, and he came close. ‘I remember you, Huy, after all. I was in charge of a chariot division in the north. An important one. We sat in Tanis and heard the news from the coast, but we never had any orders. We were awaiting orders to move against the rebels from you, you scribes and administrators,’ he spat out the words, ‘in the capital. But no word came. Now we are paying the price. Five years ago my son was drowned. Now I have lost my daughter; you will lose your children, too.’

Huy felt the heat of fear. But these deaths were not caused by an avenging spirit from beneath the sunset. They could not be. He made himself remember the teaching, bringing coolness into his heart: all things have a natural cause which can be discovered. What seems supernatural is simply what is beyond present understanding. The last thing Akhenaten ever taught was vengeance: the idea was so foreign to his nature that he would never have entertained the thought. But, the general was possessed by it. The acceptance of the idea provided him with a curious salve for his guilt. Pity for his children was engulfed in pity for himself. As for his wife, the healers had given her drugs; there was no talking to her. She lay on a bed on the verandah by her daughter’s door, asleep but for her eyes, which were open.

* * *

Taheb’s litter carried them the short distance within the compound to the towering, dark house of the Controller of the Silver Mines. Ipuky had no illusions about supernatural intervention. A long, grey face and grey eyes reminded Huy of Kenamun, though the priest seemed ebullient by comparison with this sombre banker. The room in which he received them was sparsely furnished, despite his wealth. It looked like the chamber of an ascetic priest. However, the stiff chairs and table were made of the expensive blackwood which grew to the south and was imported from Punt. The one decoration was a finely-executed wall painting of the cobra-goddess, Wadjet, goddess of the town of Buto, in the Delta.

‘I hope you realise that it is only on account of the entreaty of Taheb that I see you, Huy,’ were his words of greeting. ‘You are persistent. That is not necessarily a quality.’

‘I want to find out who killed Iritnefert.’

Ipuky did not blink. ‘I have my own men to do that. I have told Merymose what I know. Why inflict further pain on my family and myself by telling you again?’

‘Because of what you might have remembered since.’

‘That is the talk of one casting around in the dark,’ said Ipuky with a smile like the light covering of frost which, on hard nights in the middle of peret, fringes the rushes on the banks of the river. He extended scant courtesy, even to Taheb, and despite his wealth his servants only brought in the minimum guest-offering of bread and beer.

‘You might have developed suspicions. Perhaps your men have uncovered something. I could help.’

‘We both know you are thinking about someone in particular, don’t we, Huy?’ There was mockery in the man’s voice. ‘I am thinking about no one.’

‘You are thinking about Surere,’ retorted Ipuky. ‘These killings started when he broke free; and he did not escape punishment for working under the Great Criminal, as we did.’

Huy would not share this burden of guilt. ‘Well?’ he insisted, as Ipuky fell silent.

The tall man fixed him with his cold eyes. ‘I do not see him as a killer. But when he is found it will be interesting to see what he has to say.’

‘Do you know where he is?’

Ipuky took his drink and sipped it. ‘No.’ There was a long silence. Ipuky looked at neither of them. He was waiting for them to leave.

‘Perhaps your wife has something to add; or your other children.’

Ipuky’s eyes seemed sightless. ‘My children are young. All are under seven years old. My Chief Wife saw nothing, knows nothing. Iritnefert was not her daughter. If you want to find out about her character, you must ask her mother, and she is in the Delta.’

Huy glanced at the wall painting. ‘She was in the City of the Horizon with you?’

‘Of course,’ a hint of impatience in the voice now. ‘And when the city fell and she decided that my fate was no longer one she chose to share, she returned to Buto. Do not draw any conclusions from the painting. I had it done to remind me of a mistake from which I have learnt much, and of an ending which I have no cause to regret.’

‘What was Iritnefert’s mother like?’ asked Huy.

Ipuky turned his gaze slowly to Taheb. ‘A fire that could burn in water, would you not say?’

Taheb lowered her eyes.

‘And only Paheri could control it,’ Huy spoke into the silence.

Ipuky was caught too off guard to conceal his reaction. He glared at Taheb.

‘Did you tell him?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Huy. ‘I was in the City of the Horizon. Taheb was not. What happened to your sons?’

‘Clearly you know.’

‘I know that Paheri stayed with your first wife, and that your second son was lost when the northern empire collapsed.’

Ipuky looked grim. ‘That is true, and that is all there is to say. They are both dead now.’

‘Are you sure? They were loyal servants of the old king, but they were also your children.’

Ipuky looked at him with hatred. ‘They are dead to me. I do not even acknowledge them as my own.’

‘What is in his heart?’ Huy asked as they left. They had seen little of the house apart from a gloomy garden and a long corridor which led from the entrance hall to the room in which they had been received. All the doors off it had been closed, and the only light came from the open archways at its beginning and end.

‘Nothing. Stones,’ Taheb answered. Her voice was weary. ‘It is a miracle a man like that has any children at all.’ Taheb smiled thinly. ‘You are wrong. Look at how he described his wife.’

‘What?’

‘She didn’t leave him because his star had fallen; she knew well enough that he was the kind of man who’d recover. But the collapse of the City of the Horizon gave her the chance to escape. He would never have let her go if he hadn’t been distracted by his own interests. His second marriage is a marriage of conformity. Its children are the children of duty.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Ipuky’s new Chief Wife is the daughter of a colleague of his. She is fifteen years his junior, and little more than a housekeeper and unpaid bedslave. She is a human letter of partnership between two businessmen. Iritnefert’s mother, if you can believe it, could make Ipuky burn.’

‘Why didn’t Iritnefert live with her?’

‘That was Ipuky’s way of punishing her. And torturing himself, I think. Iritnefert looked like her mother, had the same temperament. She was also the price her mother had to pay for her freedom.’ Taheb paused. ‘He was lying about the painting on the wall. That is a torture, too,’ she added. ‘Then why does he have it there?’

‘Ask the gods. They made us this way.’

‘Do you think he loved his sons?’

‘He only loved Iritnefert’s mother. That was all the love he had to give. To others, he would give something called love; but it was only a reward for loyalty.’

They were being carried along a man-made gorge – a yellow road of sandstone flags between two red cliffs of plastered wall which sloped inward at the top, towards the building they were encircling. On them, giant painted images of the gods walked in a stately procession. The stiff representations were new. Harsh and impersonal, they had no life in them. Huy looked at them. These were not gods with whom you could speak.

At the house of the Chief Scribe, Reni’s major domo was waiting at the gate to meet them. He guided them through a broad passageway flanked with heavy half-columns surmounted with lotus blooms, and protected by the couched forms of rams, Amun’s beast, in sculptures larger than life. They entered a large garden, which was protected from the heat by the umbrella of a huge and ancient vine, the shadow of whose leaves dappled the paved floor. From an intricate system of pipes, water flowed everywhere, in fountains and little artificial streams, irrigating a profusion of plants, set in the earth or clustered in countless pots, whose unaccustomed variety and colour dazzled the eye. The gabbling of the water mitigated the noise of the crickets. The cool of the garden greeted you as you went in with a breath as welcome as that of the north wind at the top of a house during the season of akhet.

As they approached, Reni rose from his seat at a table near the large rectangular pool which was the centrepiece of what – as Huy now saw it to be – was an unconventionally asymmetrical garden. The scribe was dressed in the white garb of mourning, and his lined face looked worn. His own hair was combed out over his shoulders, and for make-up he had used only the faintest trace of kohl. He was pale, but his careworn expression could not disguise the malice in his eyes.

There was cunning in the face, too. Huy could not guess by what means Reni had saved himself and his family from the debacle that followed Akhenaten’s fall; but he knew many good men whose ruin had been the price the scribe had paid to be sitting here now, and the thought tempered his sympathy. He looked around for Reni’s wife – the mother of Neferukhebit – wondering if she was the source of the girl’s character.

If Reni remembered Huy from the past he made no reference to it, nor did his face betray the slightest sign of recognition. He motioned to the chairs around the low table, standing and positioning Taheb’s himself, as servants approached with wine jars and food: honey cakes, figs and heron’s eggs. Huy allowed a beaker to be filled so as not to transgress the etiquette of hospitality, but he did not propose to drink any wine. Ipuky might have saved himself, but at no one else’s expense. What was on Reni’s table was blood-food, and Huy would not touch it.

He tried not to let his feelings show in his eyes; but he sensed that the scribe knew them anyway. Neither of them, however, gave any sign, and indeed Reni seemed too preoccupied by his grief to give other matters much thought. But he was too intelligent not to have a conscience. Whether he was intelligent enough not to pay heed to it was another matter.

‘I hope you don’t think it strange of me to sit here,’ said Reni. ‘It was here that my middle daughter, Nephthys, found Nefi. I feel close to her here, as if perhaps her Khou were hovering near me.’ He smiled sadly, taking Taheb’s hand and squeezing it.

‘What do you think happened?’ asked Huy.

‘I don’t follow.’

‘Surely my question was clear?’

Reni’s brow darkened. ‘My daughter was killed, here, in my own garden. No one can find out how, or why. That is what happened.’

‘And that is all you can tell me?’

‘Do you think I have time to play games? If there were more, I’d have told the Medjays.’

‘Do you remember me from the City of the Horizon?’ Huy asked.

‘Yes, I do. You are working for Kenamun now?’ replied Reni, mildly.

‘In this matter.’

‘Kenamun and I know each other well, despite our differences in the past. Nowadays, we visit each other’s houses,’ Reni continued, in the same mild tone.

Huy registered the threat, and Reni saw that he had, before turning to Taheb, stroking her hand as he spoke. ‘Nephthys found Nefi’s body early, when she returned from the house of her husband-to-be. My sons were not yet back. The gates were still open, but there were servants about.’

‘Were there any in the garden?’ asked Taheb, wishing she could draw her hand away. There was something reptilian about the old man’s grip.

‘It is unlikely. For most of them the day’s duties were over.’

‘So it was unguarded.’

Reni shrugged slightly. ‘Taheb, my dear, I have a gatekeeper, and this house is within the palace compound. Besides, there had been one killing. No one had any reason to suspect a second.’

‘But you knew that Surere had escaped. That he was in the capital,’ said Huy.

Reni looked at Huy in contempt. ‘The Medjay captain asked me that too, and I give you the same answer: how would an escaped convict find his way into the compound? All the gates are guarded. Even you and people like you have to have special permission to enter.’ He turned away with a dismissive, impatient gesture.

‘Do you have your own men working on this?’ asked Taheb.

Reni looked across at her. ‘Ipuky wanted me to join forces with him, but I decided to leave matters in the hands of the authorities. I would not know what orders to give my men. But my sons…I cannot answer for them.’

‘How did they react?’ asked Huy, remembering what he already knew about this.

‘The older boy is angry – but then, Ankhu is a man of action. He never learnt his letters properly, to my shame, and now he talks of the army. He hunts with the young king, so no doubt some sort of career is assured him.’ Reni had not changed, thought Huy, remembering the oily modesty with which, even in the old days, he had scored social points off colleagues who he knew could not compete. ‘Nebamun is more like me,’ continued the scribe complacently. ‘He controls his grief, turns it into a subject for contemplation. But I would not say he was beyond revenge.’

‘And your daughters?’

Reni folded his hands. ‘They are women.’ Then he caught Taheb’s eye and lowered his own with a slight cough.

He was saved further embarrassment by the rustling approach through the fecundity of his garden of his wife, accompanied by two of the children. They came towards the seated group cautiously but without hesitation – almost as if their entrance had been prearranged.

‘May I present to you those members of my family who are at present – ah – available,’ said Reni. ‘Ankhu is at court, and my oldest girl will still be busy in the archive at the far end of the house.’ Huy wondered whether that eldest daughter, who worked as Reni’s secretary, had helped him destroy the documents he drew up during Akhenaten’s reign, which would have given such priceless ammunition to his enemies, before turning his attention to the newcomers.

Reni’s Chief Wife surprised Huy. She had a neutral, neglected look. Her mourning white was not as dazzling as her husband’s, and the downward turn of her mouth appeared to be the result of permanent, not recent, grief. But her face was intelligent; out of her eyes gazed a heart which acknowledged a wasted lifetime. She should have left him years ago.

Nebamun was probably seventeen, already a man, though his face was still bright and open. Nephthys was dark, and her large features had an open attractiveness due to the personality which animated them. Physically, her looks were like her mother’s; her mother’s face before hope had been dashed out of her life. It was odd that there should be nothing of Reni in the features of either child.

They greeted Taheb with pleasure before turning to Huy with more guarded expressions. He wondered if they had been primed to talk to him, and how far they had been told they could go. He longed for the chance to talk to each of them in private, but saw little hope of it.

Huy found himself unable to know where to begin. Merymose had asked the questions of fact, at a time when they were all too stunned by the event to react other than practically. The questions of theory and of hypothesis seemed wrong now, and looking from face to face, he wondered how much good the answers would do him. To encourage himself as much as anything, he ventured a handful of general questions about Neferukhebit’s activities on the days leading up to her death – questions which resulted in conventional answers, the activities of any rich young girl marking time between the end of her education and the arrival of her husband – for these girls were on the fringes of the royal household, and work – such as Taheb did – was taboo to their class.

Ankhu and Nebamun would have it easier, but for the majority of privileged men work was a nominal activity as they laboured more or less intelligently in the upper ranks of the army, the civil service and the priesthood; most of the graft was done for them at a humbler level. The boy was quieter than his sister, and gave tongue-tied answers. His sister’s death seemed to have affected him more deeply, though he bore himself with a kind of frightened dignity in front of his father.

Talking to Nephthys was a way of getting to know her dead sister by proxy, for she had plenty of spirit, and within her there was a streak of rebellion against her family, particularly her father, though there was no hint of it in any word she spoke. Nephthys was younger than her brother, but seemed older, and more sure of herself. Her independence was further underlined by an impending marriage, news of which she now shared with Taheb. Marriage, though it was to be to a priest, and thus well within her world, represented an escape from her family. Huy wondered what the husband was like. Would Nephthys turn into her mother in time? From what was being said, perhaps that was unlikely. Though the marriage had been arranged, Nephthys would be the man’s first wife, and he was near her own age.

Throughout the interview, Reni kept a Horus eye on proceedings, interrupting, when he felt an irrelevant question had been asked, with the speed and precision of a young judge. It was a relief when a secretary appeared – sent by his oldest daughter – and summoned him away on business that had to be decided that night. He left with reluctance; but his departure did not make conversation any easier. Huy had the impression that a body servant was lurking somewhere within earshot, to report any indiscretions back to Reni, and that everybody knew this.

It had grown dark, and the night, for the season, was unpleasantly close. After a short time, Reni’s wife excused herself, and everyone stood, watching her wend her way through the small jungle, looking lonelier than ever as she went. An awkward pause followed, and Huy, feeling that he had learnt all he could, made no attempt to continue the conversation. He had one question left, and he wanted to put it to one or other of the children alone. He hoped that only one of them would accompany Taheb and himself to the door, and he hoped that person would be Nephthys. Whether Taheb had divined this, he did not know, but as she rose to leave, she linked arms with the girl, and turned towards the gate.

‘Good night,’ Huy said to the boy. ‘Don’t worry. I’m sure your sister can see us to the gate. And thank your parents again.’

‘I will,’ replied Nebamun. There was an appeal in his eyes which Huy could not read.

As he was leaving, the boy seized his elbow, bringing his face close.

‘Where can I find you?’

‘I live in the harbour district. Taheb knows.’

‘All right.’ The strong hand let go of his arm, and Nebamun stepped back.

‘Goodbye,’ he said again, in a clear voice.

‘Goodbye.’

Huy watched him retreat and then followed Taheb and Nephthys, finding them talking softly at the gate. Nephthys, her arms folded, leant on the jamb, her hair softened by a halo of light from the gatekeeper’s lamp. Her clear face betrayed no grief or anxiety at all. The door stood open and beyond it on the pavement was cast the shadow of the Med jay posted to keep watch.

‘Nephthys,’ said Huy, drawing her aside. ‘Where did your sister get the tattoo?’

The girl looked at him in wonder. ‘What tattoo?’ she asked.

‘She had a scorpion tattooed on her shoulder.’

The girl’s eyes became even wider, then she suppressed a laugh. ‘That was just like her. I’m sorry, you must think I have no feelings at all. But I admired her. She was the only one who stood up to him.’ She laughed again. ‘I can’t believe it! He’d have killed her if he’d known.’

‘But didn’t he see the body?’

Nephthys looked at him. ‘I’m certain he hasn’t seen one of us naked, ever. I don’t even know how we got to be born. My poor mother has slept alone as long as I can remember.’

‘What about his other wives?’

‘He doesn’t have any. Nor any concubines. He spends nearly all his time, day and night, with Iryt, my big sister. They have an office at the far end of the south wing.’

‘Why didn’t she join us tonight?’

Nephthys shrugged. ‘She’s always busy. Even we never see her.’ She looked at him. ‘You can draw what conclusions you like from that. I just can’t wait to get out of this house.’

‘Do you hate it so much?’

‘I’d have married a boatman to get out.’

‘Why?’

She was about to answer, but the gatekeeper approached, giving Huy a suspicious look.

‘Time to close up,’ he said sourly.

Nephthys smiled at Huy a little sadly. ‘I’m counting the days. Goodnight.’

They did not talk much in the litter on the way back to Taheb’s house. Huy was wondering how much truth there had been in what Ipuky had said about his sons. Taheb’s skin still crawled from the scribe’s touch.

‘His poor wife,’ she said, finally.

‘It seems he prefers the company of his daughter Iryt.’

‘Sometimes neglect is worse than abuse.’

‘Then she should leave him.’

‘How can she? What would she do? Her only hope is widowhood.’ She was silent for a moment. ‘And now she’s got to bear the death of her daughter. Why do you think Reni said that no one had any reason to suspect a second killing?’ Huy looked thoughtfully out through the curtains of the litter at the night sky, bright in the silence with the light of a million stars.