City of Dreams

EIGHT

The search for Surere, the first of its kind ever to be conducted by the Medjays, had been organised with precision by Merymose. The Southern Capital had been divided into eight segments, like slices of the round, flat loaves the Semite guest workers baked, each segment’s inner edge bisecting one of the main quarters of the town, into which it was split by the two main thoroughfares, one running north-to-south, and the other east-to-west, which met at the centre. Most police were concentrated in the crowded districts of irregular streets, such as the harbour quarter, and special details were dispatched to the privately-run brothels which did not fall under the control of the priesthood. Nubenehem, her peace made with him, complained of this bitterly to Huy; the attentions of the Medjays had cost her a day’s profit, with the following day well below average on takings, as frightened clients stayed away. Following an instinct based on Huy’s description, for what it was worth, of the house where he’d met Surere, Merymose sent Medjays out of uniform – another innovation – to the good residential districts.

All of which led to nothing. Not even the raids on the town’s three gay brothels brought forth a whisper of information about Surere’s whereabouts, and after four days of intensive hunting, over ground which included the Valley of the Great Tombs on the west bank of the river, Merymose began to think that perhaps, after all, the escaped political had done as he had told Huy he would, and left for the northern deserts to found his religious community. The thought came as no relief to Merymose, for although the loss of his quarry might not mean his dismissal from the Medjays, he could expect demotion, or at best to end his days in no higher rank than he held now. He reflected gloomily on the price of his ambition, because he had gone out on a limb to persuade a mistrustful and increasingly hostile Kenamun to consent to the operation he had mounted, and then he had only achieved it by linking Surere to the serial killings.

If it were now fixed in Kenamun’s mind that Surere was the killer, another murder would be all that would save Merymose’s neck. And yet he had been thorough, efficient, and ruthless in his investigation, not drawing the line at torture to extract information where he thought it might be withheld. But a new thought struck him – another murder might lead his superior to assume that Surere was, after all, still hiding out in the Southern Capital, and that, too, would hardly be to Merymose’s credit. Merymose had not been left much by life apart from his career. Now it looked as if that, too, were coming apart.

Surere could not disappear in the way that he had without powerful help. Merymose had to find out where that help came from, but he told himself that he had no reason to suspect Huy of withholding any more information. The risk would certainly not be worth it to the little ex-scribe.

The tail end of the search for Surere was still in progress when they found the fourth girl. She was near the east bank of the River, five hundred paces south of the town, lying on a flat white rock where the crocodiles could not get her, though by the time she was discovered by a Med jay patrol at the sixth hour of day when the sun was at its highest, the vultures had eaten her eyes and part of her face, and the flies were so glutted that they could not leave the feast unless they were picked off. As the season progressed, so had the heat, and Huy and Merymose stood over the body with their heads wrapped in linen cloths to protect them from the sun.

‘We had better get her away from here,’ said the Medjay healer, removing the last of the flies and quickly wrapping the corpse in a linen sheet before any more could settle. ‘That is, if you want her examined before she falls apart.’ He turned away to supervise his two assistants, who manhandled the small bundle on to the back of a covered ox-cart.

As it drove slowly away towards the town, so the small knot of idlers and gawpers dispersed, back to the quays and the eating houses to tell about what they’d seen, and Huy and Merymose were left alone.

‘What do you think?’ Huy asked him, as they looked at the rock. The flies had returned to cluster on two small lakes of dried blood, all that remained here to show where the girl had lain, apart from the lingering smell.

‘It’s the same, isn’t it? Except that the body wasn’t found soon enough. I don’t envy the embalmers.’

‘No.’ Huy was pensive. He had told Merymose nothing of his thoughts about Ipuky and Reni – sensing the policeman’s disappointment and mistrust when he told him that he had been able to find out no more than he had himself. All his reservations were based on intuition, supposition. He had nothing to give Merymose to take to Kenamun, and the priest-administrator would not thank him for information which cast suspicion on two of the most powerful men in the country. At the same time, the more he delayed, the greater Surere’s danger was.

The girl’s body had been laid out just as the others, and it had been the work of a moment to discover the tiny stab wound under the soft left breast.

‘I’ve sent men into the palace compound to find out which household she was from.’ Merymose was tense. ‘The outcry will raise Set. I must find the man who did this.’

Huy stooped to pick something off the ground, that lay three-quarters hidden in the rough yellow grass that grew around the sides of the stone. It reflected the sunlight dully in his hands, dangling from a broken chain. It was an amulet of Ishtar.

By the eighth hour, all the Med jays sent to the palace compound were back. No one had been reported missing. Not a servant-girl; not even a slave, though the enquiries themselves had stirred up panic.

‘Are they sure?’ asked Huy.

‘Certain. I would not be mistaken over this,’ replied Merymose shortly.

‘One household overlooked would be enough.’

They had received the reports in the Place of Healing, where the body lay in the courtyard, protected from the flies and the heat by wet wrappings, waiting for someone to claim it and give permission for an examination to begin, before it was taken to the embalmers. By the twelfth hour of day, as the sun sailed west and inclined towards the horizon, finally allowing the north wind to bring its cooling relief, still no one had come.

‘If we don’t look at her now, we won’t get a chance at all,’ said the Medjay healer, who had returned and partially unwrapped the body. ‘I’ve dressed the eye-wounds but the rot has started. If no embalmers collect her tomorrow, she must go to the lime pit.’

‘Is it still light enough to work?’ asked Merymose, standing, and walking across to the doctor to look down at the body.

‘Yes. It will be an hour before Nut swallows the sun.’

Merymose glanced at Huy. ‘Then I think we should begin.’

‘And if her relatives turn up?’ said the doctor.

‘Then I will explain,’ replied Merymose, with a confidence he did not feel. However to take no action would be worse than to risk insulting the dead.

A faint noise, like sighing, was brought into the courtyard on the wind. Merymose looked around the darkening corners, wondering if it was the girl’s Ka. Would it object to this treatment of its old dwelling before the proper rites had been observed? The doctor, covering his nose and mouth with a cloth and summoning an assistant, carefully began to unwrap the body, supporting it in his arms like a mother or a lover. He laid it back on the table and went over to another, producing a small leather bag from his kilt. Laying it on the table he opened it, and took out a selection of fine flint knives.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said wrily, noticing Merymose’s expression. ‘The spirits respect me; I have had to do with the dead for a long time.’

These dead are my responsibility,’ replied the policeman. ‘It might have been possible to prevent this.’

‘You did what you could. The dead know us; they know what is within our power to achieve and to prevent.’

Huy bent over the body silently. The damaged young face had been beautiful. A high forehead curved back gently into a rich tangle of dark, curled hair; she had an aquiline nose, full, sensual lips and a proud chin. The teeth were unusually white; strong and regular.

The assistant lit torches at her head and feet, and the light from these outlined the contours of her dark skin.

‘Would you say that this is her natural colour?’ he asked.

The doctor came over and looked. ‘It is sunburn,’ he said finally, ‘I had not noticed.’

Huy had taken one of her hands in his, running his thumb across it.

‘Feel this,’ he said to Merymose, who had come up in turn. The policemen could see that the skin was rough, and the nails, though diligently polished, were chipped and broken.

‘Perhaps, in the struggle,’ suggested the doctor. He held a slender knife aloft. ‘Now, if you would just give me room.’

What struggle, thought Huy and Merymose simultaneously. There should have been no struggle.

‘Just a moment,’ said Huy. Then he looked at Merymose. ‘Her feet.’

There was no need to touch them. The soles were hard, and the edges of the big and little toes carried a rind.

‘Look at the anklet,’ said Merymose, suddenly. Huy did so. It was made of copper.

Huy grabbed one of the torches and brought it closer, careless of the wax dripping on to the dead skin. The girl wore no other jewellery – now, at least; but he noticed that the long lobes of her ears were pierced, and that there was a slight graze on the side of her neck. There were other, dark marks on her shoulders and sides. He turned to the doctor questioningly.

‘Bruises, of course,’ said the healer. ‘I told you there had been a struggle. She’d been badly beaten up, poor kid. Three ribs are broken. Now, if you’ll let me get to work while there’s still light, I ought to be able to confirm what I suspected when I first saw her – ‘ He paused, bending over the body, a long hardwood implement in his hand. Breathing through his mouth, he manipulated his probe between her legs. After a minute, he straightened up.

‘What is it?’ asked Merymose.

‘She was raped. In both the nether gates. But she was no virgin before it happened, if that’s of any interest to you.’

Huy produced the little amulet of Ishtar from the linen pouch at his belt. He looked at Merymose. ‘This should have told me more, earlier.’

Merymose returned the scribe’s gaze, telling himself once again that there was no reason, surely, to distrust him.

An hour later, standing in the darkness, so far from having the fourth murder in a series, they had a new killing: one which was superficially like the others, but whose only real resemblance lay in the infliction of one particular wound, and the manner and location in which the body was laid out after death. The girl, whoever she was, despite the aristocratic looks and fine body which had at first misled them, would only have found houseroom within the palace compound as an under-servant.

‘It’s much more likely that she was a whore,’ said the doctor, having washed his hands and arms, and rewrapped the body. ‘She wasn’t clean enough to have been a harem girl. But it’s hard to imagine what she did to deserve a fate like this.’

Her sunburnt skin and her rough hands and feet made her poor. The copper anklet was probably the only thing of value she had possessed, and it was curious that it had not been stolen, for all metal was valuable in the Black Land. It was the little amulet which told them most about the girl. The cult of the goddess Ishtar had come into the Black Land with settlers from the far north-east where the Twin Rivers flowed. But the settlers had been courtiers, the sons and daughters of kings and dukes exchanged in marriages which formed part of peace treaties between the Black Land and the Nation of the North-East. The cult had remained after those who had brought it had embraced the gods of the Black Land, the true gods, the gods of the land in which they now lived, but it remained as no more than a fashion among the rich. It was a fashion now past. Only among the poor, the retainers who had accompanied their masters and later fallen from favour, or among the half-caste children brought up by superstitious mothers true to their old faith, did the little goddess of love and war retain a true following. There would be few such people in the Black Land now. Huy hoped that the discovery would ease the task of finding out who the girl had been.

‘Why do you think she was killed?’ asked Merymose as they made their way from the Place of Healing to Kenamun’s office.

‘I don’t know. If we knew why she was killed in that way we would be closer to the truth.’

‘It’s simple. He’s becoming violent.’

‘Did this girl struggle; make him lose his temper?’ Huy said, and then had another question. ‘But why change the kind of victim? This girl was poor and sullied.’

‘Do you look for reason in madness?’ asked Merymose.

‘I thought we were dealing with an obsession.’

‘But why copy the method, if this time the killer is someone else?’

‘Who knows that there is a method to copy?’ said Huy quietly. ‘Only a very few people.’

‘Only a few that we know of,’ said Merymose. They fell silent. Then the policeman continued, if the method was copied in order to make us believe that the crime was committed by the killer of the other girls, then our new killer is either clumsy, or stupid.’

‘Or clever.’

‘What?’

if the method was copied, whoever did it intended us to think that it had been copied clumsily and stupidly. Perhaps there are not two killers, and this has been done by our man to confuse us. In which case we may be closer to him than we think.’

Merymose shook his head. ‘You are burying yourself in too many thoughts.’

‘Yes,’ said Huy. ‘We must stay on one path, while being aware in our hearts where others may lead. But I am not sure now that we seek Surere for this.’

Merymose’s eyes became veiled. ‘How can you say that?’

‘You still think I am protecting him. If I knew where he was, perhaps I would still try to. I tell you this because I know that I cannot expect trust if I do not give it. But Surere could never make love to a woman. He could never penetrate, not even if his life depended on it, for he is sure that their nether mouths contain teeth, and that once his limb was inside them, they would bite it off.’

‘And that is why he prefers the company of men?’

‘Can you think of a more compelling reason?’

There was a speck of yellow phlegm on Kenamun’s lower lip. As he spoke, and this lip joined the upper, so the wet dot transferred allegiance, and then back again. Huy found himself looking at the man’s lips alone, and the spittle switching from one to the other, in horrified fascination and to the exclusion of everything else.

Kenamun was in a white rage. Although he fought to control it, his voice trembled, and the knuckles of the hands which clutched the chair at whose back he stood were huge, the skin stretched tautly across them. His dark eyes were glassy with fury, the pupils dilated, the whites bulging in their sockets. A lock of hair had worked itself loose in his wig and now hung over his forehead. He could not have been aware of it, for it was the only untidy thing in the room, a banner of disorder in the midst of the most rigid ranking. His simple, expensive tunic hung straight, without the least sign of a crease or a sweat stain, despite the heat of the day and the advanced hour of morning. The jewellery at wrist and neck shone as if it were still on display in the shop from which it came, and the odour from the man was simply – nothing. A sense of freshness, perhaps, but no smell either personal nor scented.

‘I want Surere caught and brought here; and I want him tried and executed, and I want this before the next public rest day,’ he repeated.

‘There is no proof that he – ‘ said Merymose.

‘Do not speak to me of proof. You have advanced nothing – nothing – to suggest that he is not guilty, apart from the theories and musings of Huy, whom I was ill-advised enough to allow you to engage as consultant.’ Froth bubbled at the corners of Kenamun’s mouth. He licked it away with a flick of his tongue, sucking and swallowing.

Huy knew better than to speak. He remained where he was, standing behind Merymose and a little to one side, head bowed, but eyes surreptitiously up, on that obstinate morsel of spit, now stretching into a thin line of glutinous liquid string between the two lips.

‘One who was a colleague of the escaped criminal. I do not now deny that I hoped he would lead us to him. And now what do I learn? That he met Surere and withheld knowledge of the meeting from us. He is lucky that he confessed his action before we discovered it, for that is all that has saved his life.’

Huy darted a quick look at the back of Merymose’s head. The Medjay captain had no doubt been forced into the minor act of betrayal which consisted in breaking Huy’s confidence to Kenamun, and there may have been political or strategic reasons for it; but the act had raised a wall between them. There was no reason why Kenamun should ever have known about his meeting with Surere. Perhaps now Merymose was beginning to share Kenamun’s desire for an arrest at any price, so long as it was soon. But if Surere was not the killer, then the murders would go on. Huy could not believe that Merymose could not see that. Kenamun clearly hoped to reap the rewards of a quick and flashy double solution, and to have moved on to other work before the murders recommenced.

‘This fourth murder confirms the escalating violence of the man’s mind. He is deranged. He cannot have gone far. I want him found, I want a confession extracted, and I want him executed!’ Kenamun repeated deliberately. ‘You have until the next rest day. Bring him to me and I will make sure he talks.’

Merymose did not reply. Huy looked at the black polished surface of the table behind which Kenamun stood. The ink holder; the leather pad for papyrus; the serried ranks of brush pens and rolls of paper, a cylindrical pot containing bronze pins and a paperknife. From them his gaze travelled to the hands on the back of the chair, noticing a red mark the shape of a new moon on one of them, noticing the heavy turquoise-and-gold ring of office on the middle finger of the other.

Kenamun had come to the end of his tirade, and now as his expression relaxed Huy thought he could discern something behind the anger in the man’s eyes: an expression so fleeting that he was not able to identify it, but one which left a disturbing impression on his heart. But now Kenamun had begun to speak again.

‘There is of course no question of retaining the services of this man. You say that he has contributed materially to the progress of your investigation. I do not accept that he has contributed anything that we could not have found out without his help. Your faith in his expertise was ill-founded, and does no credit to an officer of your rank and experience.’

Merymose started to say something.

‘You are forbidden to work in association with him any further. Is that clear?’

Merymose was silent.

‘Is that clear?’ On his dignity, Kenamun was beginning to sound increasingly like the petty official made good which he was at heart. Huy looked at the over-long face, the ridiculous beard, and realised with a sudden shock that the man was scared. But of what? Was Horemheb beginning to lean on him? If so, he might well be frightened for the sake of his future ambitions.

‘River-horse dung,’ said Merymose, when they were outside. The sun glared down, dazzling them. Neither had slept, and both were shabby from the long night. In addition to which, Kenamun had taken care to keep them waiting an hour in an unventilated antechamber before seeing them. Huy said nothing, resisting the urge to ask Merymose why he had told Kenamun of his meeting with Surere, and wondering if the Medjay would give an explanation. But none came. They walked northwards, towards the town centre.

‘The man is river-horse dung, and deserves to be rolled into a ball for scarabs’ eggs.’

‘Perhaps his masters aren’t pleased with him either.’

‘Then they should remove him.’ Merymose looked at Huy. ‘I threw you to the crocodiles to save my job.’

‘Then you are river-horse dung too.’

Merymose drew himself up. ‘You will be all right. Your work will not suffer.’

‘And what do I get out of this?’

‘I will indent for a fee for you.’

‘To whom? Kenamun? Don’t hide behind officialese.’

‘You don’t know how lucky you are not to be part of the system.’

‘If it weren’t for what you’ve been through, I’d break your jaw.’

Merymose stopped. ‘You don’t believe I would have sold you short for no reason at all, do you?’

Huy looked at him. ‘Do you still think I am holding back on Surere?’

Merymose did not answer quickly enough. Huy started to walk away, realising with bitterness how far away he still was from being accepted in this new society, and realising to his renewed surprise how much he wanted to be. Was this engagement his ticket to respectability, and is that why he had accepted it? How would Taheb react to this debacle? But what irritated him above all was the jumble of loose ends he would be obliged to leave behind, just at the moment when he was beginning to see how to unravel them.

He heard the Medjay come up behind him. ‘Look,’ said Merymose. ‘I still need your help. If you want an apology, you have it. But don’t let me down now.’

‘Do you mean you want me to track down Surere?’

‘I want to find the killer. I don’t want to hand a scapegoat over to Kenamun for him to torture into confession.’

Huy smiled guardedly. ‘But we can no longer work together.’ Merymose returned the smile. ‘Not openly. But I am a match for Kenamun, and you are forgetting our mutual friend.’

* * *

Huy returned home to bathe and sleep. He awoke towards evening, put on fresh clothes and took himself out to one of the modest eating houses that lined the bank of the river on either side of the harbour. He ordered black beer and fig liquor, bread, pork and persea fruit, sitting outside under an awning and looking at the boats. Most had already lit their fore-and-aft lamps, which twinkled like glow-worms in the gathering dusk. A large cedar-barque rode at anchor, still loaded with its expensive cargo and guarded by two men armed with spears and swords. Near it were two smaller barges, being made ready to make the short journey upriver to Edfu to collect another load of sandstone. A handful of people crossed the harbour square, dawdling on their way home or to drink after work. The city was clean, quiet and contented. Around him in the eating house a few other diners sat, chatting quietly, and from the next table came the muted click of the pieces being moved by two players of twenty-squares. Looking south, Huy could just make out the shape of the wall surrounding the palace compound, and remembered that quiet and contentment existed in reality for very few, and then only for a fraction of the time one spends under this sun. Beneath the surface of this gentle evening a complex and never-ending game, which had something in it of a duel, was being played, the players swimming in their milieu like fish, at different levels which they would occasionally switch, to make an attack or to retreat, to seize prey or to threaten. The dead sat around the edge of the game and watched, knowing the secrets.

Banking, despite his better judgment, on Merymose’s promise, and unable to shelve the curiosity which had been awakened, Huy pushed relaxation aside with his stool and made his way from the eating house back through the harbour quarter towards the City of Dreams. It occurred to him as he walked that he had not seen Taheb since their visit to the palace compound. Might she be expecting him to visit her, or at least to send her a message? It gave him a qualm to realise that a large part of his need to see her again stemmed from her usefulness to him as a go between. He desired her too; but she had not lit a fire inside him as Aset had. He did not flatter himself that he might have had that effect on her, but he did wonder what course their liaison would take.

Nubenehem looked up as he pushed the door open. She was not alone. Standing by her table was a black-skinned girl from the far south, eyes and teeth dazzling white; breasts and buttocks mirroring orbs. Apart from gold chains around her neck, waist and ankles she was naked. So firm and perfect was her body that there was something unearthly, even unsexual about it. She shone in the lamplight like the black wood from Punt, and might have been carved from it.

‘Tell me you’ve come to spend some money,’ said Nubenehem in greeting.

‘I’m still earning it.’

‘What about this one?’ The fat Nubian nodded at the little girl from the south, who primped and giggled. There was a freshness and gaiety about her which lit up the brothel, making it appear dismal by comparison.

Huy smiled at the girl. ‘At any other time…But now I need one more favour.’

‘You want to sell me the wig back? No.’

‘A valuable wig like that? Are you joking?’

The black girl laughed and skipped away behind the curtain which led to the interior of the City of Dreams. She seemed possessed of an inviolable grace. Huy wondered how long she had been in the capital, and how she had got there.

‘What favour?’

‘I’m looking for a girl.’

‘Another one? What’s wrong with the ones I’ve got?’

‘This girl’s from the Land of the Twin Rivers.’

‘Oh,’ said Nubenehem sarcastically. ‘Easy. You sure you only want one?’

‘She might have gone missing from wherever she works.’ Huy tried to pick his words carefully, but Nubenehem was on the defensive immediately.

‘A place like this?’

‘Yes.’

‘When?’

‘Two days ago. Perhaps three.’

‘You still working for the Medjays?’

‘No,’ he told her truthfully.

‘Good. Didn’t seem like your style, somehow.’

‘Have you heard anything?’

‘How fast do you suppose news travels?’ Nubenehem remained cautious.

‘There aren’t that many girls from there.’

‘I’ll ask around. See if anybody’s lost one.’

‘Thank you.’

‘It’ll cost you two silver pieces.’

Huy stepped out into the warm night, smelling the heavy, dusty odour of the air appreciatively. Still rested, he was disinclined to return to his solitary house, and although the thought of visiting Taheb came to him, he rejected it. He wanted tonight to himself, and the idea of the wealthy formality of her house oppressed him.

He returned to the quayside, content for a time to walk up and down, allowing his thoughts to marshal themselves. His eyes wandered from object to object; the facades of the buildings with their dark, secretive entrances, the boats again, the glitter of the restless water, the fishermen’s lights out in the middle of the stream, the faces of the other people taking their evening stroll. Again he found himself wondering how much contentment there was behind any one among this sea of faces; but the pursuit of such reflection was vain. For most of those around him, life was a simple matter ordered by the pharaoh and the gods, by the annual rise and fall of the River and the three seasons, by the narrow strip of green in the desert along which they existed. Complexity was neither necessary nor desirable; it was of no practical use and it solved nothing in the end.

Someone touched his elbow so timidly that he thought it had been accidental, until the gesture was repeated with more insistence. Now he turned and saw Nebamun walking beside him.

‘Hello,’ said the boy, looking at him with hollow eyes.

‘Hello,’ replied Huy, not slackening his pace.

They continued in silence for several paces, part of the crowd and lost in it. Few people were talking and the silence of night cast its pall over the city. The occasional cry of laughter, or a voice raised in anger, seemed shocking, like a violation. But the silence was not complete; it never was, here, for there was always the insistent murmur of the river and the laborious, unending sawing of the crickets.

‘Do you have a message for me?’ said Huy finally, recognising that the boy looked to him to break the silence.

‘From whom?’

Huy spread his hands. ‘I don’t know. From your father?’

‘No. What would he have to say to you?’

‘That is true.’ The thought of Reni sending any sort of word to him amused Huy; but the boy continued to look at him seriously.

‘Then what is it?’ Huy asked after a moment longer. Nebamun hesitated before replying. When he spoke he looked ahead, only occasionally glancing at Huy, though whether for approval or in anticipation of an interruption, Huy could not tell. ‘We heard today that Kenamun has sacked you. We heard because Kenamun and my father are friends. Business associates. Colleagues. You know. A finger in every pie.’

‘Yes?’ Huy would not be drawn into criticising either Reni or Kenamun. Life here had taught him that much caution, strongly as it ran against his nature.

‘I believe he was wrong to do so.’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes. Aren’t you angry?’

‘He wasn’t satisfied with the work.’

‘Are you going to leave it – just like that?’

Huy looked at him, but there seemed to be nothing to read in the face, beyond a curious anxiety, and a curious devotion. ‘I have no choice.’

‘But can you bear to?’

There was an insistence in the voice which irritated Huy. What need did he have to justify himself to this pampered youth? But then that thought was replaced by another: was not there agony in Nebamun’s voice as well?

‘It is not a question of what I can bear, but of what I have to put up with.’

Nebamun licked his lips and swallowed. ‘If you cannot find out who killed my sister, no one can.’

‘What about your brother Ankhu? I thought he had plans.’

‘Ankhu is good at starting game. He is not good at stalking it.’

The crowd milled around them. Huy took the boy’s arm and guided him through it, to the edge of the quay, where a short, broad jetty jutted out into the water. Resting a foot on the bollard, he faced Nebamun.

‘Now we can speak in more comfort. What do you want?’

‘I want to help you.’

Huy smiled inwardly. After so long alone, now he was surrounded by people eager either to enlist his help or offer theirs.

‘You cannot.’

‘Why?’ There was a touching air of innocence about the boy.

‘Your father would not approve. Kenamun would not approve. It would be bad for me. In any case, I can have nothing more to do with the investigation.’

Nebamun looked at him defiantly. ‘I cannot believe that you are the kind of man who can just stop working on something, leaving it half-finished like this.’

‘What do you want from me? I earn a living the way I have to, not the way I choose to.’

‘But don’t you care about the people? Don’t you want to put an end to this?’

‘The Medjays will do that.’

‘The Medjays! They are donkeys.’

‘No, they are not.’

‘I do not believe that you will simply drop this case.’ Nebamun spoke more quietly, but his tone was desperate.

‘Because you do not want me to. But you must trust Merymose. He knows what to do.’

‘Let me help you.’

‘I am sorry. There is nothing to help me with.’

The boy fixed him with a final look, but said no more, and slipped away into the crowd, only turning back once more. Huy wished that he could unravel the message in his eyes. Might there have been a challenge there?

He waited impatiently for news of Surere’s capture. Kenamun’s deadline came and went, but Taheb, with her ease of access to information, heard nothing to suggest that the Medjay captain had been either dismissed or taken off the case.

Huy assumed that he was still working on it. He spent his nights with Taheb, but these days he had begun to notice the glances the servants gave him, and made excuses when she wanted him to join her dinner guests. The role they were casting him in was clear, and he hated it. Sensing this, Taheb sought to reassure him, but his own pride stood between them, and they both knew that their affair had more to do with simple pleasure than deep feelings. Their lovemaking was still passionate, but the tree had lost its spring leaves, and under the summer foliage there was no sign of fruit. A hint of duty had crept into their relationship.

At last Nubenehem had news for him. Huy handed over the fee she had demanded.

‘I should have asked you for more,’ said Nubenehem. ‘You’re getting some real stuff for your money.’

‘What is it?’

‘You’d better not tell anyone where you got this from, or I’ll have to move my business to Napata,’ said Nubenehem, seriously. ‘And if that happens, I’ll see you fed to Sobek’s children.’

‘I’ve no wish to be crocodile fodder.’

Nubenehem grinned. ‘She was called Isis.’

‘Original.’

‘Not her real name. I don’t know that. But where she worked might interest you.’

‘Yes?’

‘At the Glory of Set.’

Nubenehem had named a specialised brothel for a clientele which enjoyed inflicting and receiving pain. There was something else about it. It was a place for the very rich, indirectly managed by the priesthood, within the walls of the palace compound. For some time a rumour had persisted that Horemheb, in his moves to clear up the corruption which had flourished like rampant weed during the years in which the city had fallen into neglect, had more than once attempted to close it; but that the interests which protected it were still too powerful for him to dispense with.

Huy would need Merymose’s help if he were to proceed in that direction. He thanked the fat Nubian for her help – it had indeed been well worth the two pieces of silver she had demanded – and left.

He was at the end of his patience when a message came from Merymose.

‘I’m not sure that I enjoy being your go between,’ said Taheb, as she delivered it.

‘You aren’t,’ said Huy, reading the note. It was hurriedly written on a scrap of papyrus which had been used and scraped clean several times before. Taheb watched him.

‘You can’t wait, can you?’ she said, drily.

‘What?’

‘To be back in action. You have changed, Huy. You are a very different man from the frightened little scribe who arrived here a year ago.’

‘Have I offended you?’

‘Why?’

‘There is something in the way you speak.’

She clasped her hands, and took a few short paces. ‘I feel shut out.’

‘There is no reason for that.’

‘Can’t you leave this alone? Isn’t it becoming dangerous? What if Surere knows you’re after him and decides to do something about it?’

‘What makes you mention him?’

Taheb made a gesture of impatience. ‘But he must be the man you’re after. Perhaps he is working for someone else. You suggested that he must have powerful friends. In any case, the closer you get, the more likely you are to be killed.’

Huy smiled. ‘No one is going to kill me.’

‘That is a stupid remark.’

Huy spread his hands. ‘I cannot stop working on this just because it is dangerous. You know that.’

‘You do it simply because the mystery fascinates you.’

‘That is part of it. But also I want to stop a bad thing.’

‘To protect us from it?’

‘Yes.’

‘All of us, in the Southern Capital?’

‘Yes,’ Huy said, wondering what this was leading to. Taheb’s look was ironical.

‘But you do not care for us. What do you care for this society? It is corrupt; it has betrayed the ideals you worked for, and it has robbed you of any position.’

‘There are still good people in it. As for the rest, if I am to survive myself I must adapt to what time brings.’

‘Why don’t you leave this to the Medjays?’ she asked, suddenly changing tack.

‘It is they who asked my help.’

‘Look,’ she said, finally, exasperated. ‘I see this taking you away from me. I do not want it and I do not understand it. Leave it. I have a boat ready and it will take us to the Delta. Let Merymose deal with this.’

‘I cannot let him down. What do you want me to do, ignore this? If so, why did you let me have it? You could have lied to me.’

‘Your heart is too like a maze. It is as twisted as the entrance to a tomb.’

They looked unhappily away from each other. ‘Do you use this as a means to get away from me?’ she asked finally.

‘No,’ he said; but he was no longer sure, and he knew his voice betrayed his thoughts. Taheb, however, only heard the tone that she wanted to hear.

‘But you will not come with me to the Delta?’

‘No.’

She sighed, her eyes bright, but her dignity intact. ‘Then I will go alone. I want to see my children. Write to me when this thing is over. Then perhaps you will know what you want to do.’

‘Do you know what you want to do?’

She relaxed, smiled. ‘I do not. Come, we are grown and we talk like children bickering over gleanings.’ They embraced, but knew that it would go no further. Not this moment, and perhaps not ever again, despite the time it would still take to confront that knowledge. The heart loves security, at almost any price, and for most men it parts company reluctantly, slowly, and selfishly.

‘If you cannot find another way to be in touch in my absence,’ said Taheb, ‘use my steward. He is my cousin, and can be trusted.’

Their spirits had parted, and though their bodies stayed together for a while longer, it was the first time since they had met that they found it difficult to talk. As he left, though he did not like to admit it to himself, Huy felt his sadness tempered with relief. There was little time left before his meeting with Merymose, so he did not return to his house, but took a circuitous route which would bring him to their rendezvous at the moment the sun touched the top of the western cliffs. For a while as he walked, faster as the sun began to dip more quickly towards Nut’s receiving mouth, he thought he caught a glimpse of someone following him; but it was no more than a glimpse, and the figure – a ghost in a dark robe – slipped out of sight behind a building’s corner before he could even take in its size. After that, his senses remained strained and alert for several hundred paces, but there was no more hint of a shadow, and as he moved away from the busier streets he became increasingly confident that he was alone.

As the sun began to set, so the darkness and the light divided into separate, intense pools. The dusty streets, now that the traders had withdrawn from them, seemed to enjoy a silent life of their own. At the end of a shaft of light streaming down an alley which led to the river, a scorpion dozed on a broken brick, though at Huy’s approach the little brown statue bristled, pincers and sting instantly alert. The sounds he made fell into the embrace of a dead echo, and he felt that he might be the last man on earth. He was walking past the barley granaries now, three rough structures of tamarisk planking. A watchman squatted at the entrance of one, but he was asleep, and might as well have been a statue. Near him two other guardians of the granaries, cats, lay curled at the perfect centre of twin outcrops of shade.

Another twenty paces along and around a corner, a fourth granary stood. Its door, as expected, was ajar, and after checking the street Huy quickly slipped through it into the twilit interior. The barn was not full, but in some of the stalls on either side of a broad central aisle he could see heaped mountains of grain as his eyes became accustomed to the dark. There were the long-handled wooden shovels used for transferring the food into sacks, and at the end of the aisle there rose, like the bulk of a god’s statue in a temple, a wooden hopper, its side bound with bronze. It was a huge thing, hanging in the air from a beam, its duct turned to point down over one of the stalls. As he approached, Huy could see that the duct had been opened, for the flax rope which controlled it was pulled down. Smelling the fresh dust in the air he realised that the load of grain in the hopper had only recently been discharged into the stall.

The wide door of the stall, which the sackers would open outwards when the time came to make use of the grain within, was bolted shut. As Huy came closer, he noticed something glinting in the half light, not quite halfway up the door and towards its centre. Suddenly his heart beat faster and he quickened his pace, in the grip of dreadful panic. The dull reflection came from a gold finger ring. Four fingers were thrust, gripping, through a gap between the planks of the door. Huy touched them. They might have been made of stone. He recognised the ring.

He turned round in an instant, but the silence of the granary mocked him: he was alone. Pulling the heavy bolt of the door, he stood back to allow the weight of the grain to open it, then, working with frantic haste, swung it wider, and, grabbing one of the shovels, began to dig. He seemed to be moving through mud, his actions hampered as if in a dream. He slipped and stumbled on the grain, sinking into it. As fast as he dug, more tiny oval ears tumbled into the hole he had made, in their thousands. But at last he reached the body.

Merymose lay on his back. Barley filled his eyes, his nostrils and his mouth. His fingernails were broken and bloody from when he had thrown himself at the door and torn at it, in the moment when he realised that he had been shut into the stall, and what was going to happen next.