City of Dreams

NINE

‘Why? Because Kenamun has lost his best man, and I have no faith in his ability to solve this on his own. Nor, to judge from their efforts, do I see that I have much more to expect from my own people. You will get all the help you want, though I suspect you will be better off working alone. I will pay you in whatever goods you request, at the rate of half a deben of silver a day. I will allow you twenty days. If you have not solved this by then, you will be dismissed. If you have, I will buy the house you live in and give it to you.’

Huy looked round the bleak room, unable to believe he was in it again. He had spoken to no one about his discovery of Merymose’s body, not even to Taheb, who was distracted by the preparations for her reluctant departure, and had not questioned him when he told her that Merymose had not appeared at their meeting place.

The news of the policeman’s death came soon afterwards – the sleeping watchman had found the body when he made his evening rounds. But by that time Taheb had already embarked.

Huy had returned to his house in order to work out a way of getting into the brothel known by the impious name of the Glory of Set – Nebamun had been right, he found that he simply could not let the whole thing drop, and now there was a friend’s death to be avenged – when the message had come for him from the palace compound.

‘I am waiting,’ came sternly from the other side of the table. But was there an unsteadiness in the voice? Was Ipuky as sure of himself as he seemed?

Huy looked across at the Controller of the Silver Mines.

They were both sitting, this time, though the man’s austerity had relaxed very little further than that. What he was offering was something which Huy had hoped for, though the source was surprising. He looked into the severe face again, noting details. Lines at the corners of the mouth indicated that it might have smiled once, but there was no doubt that the eyes were anxious. There was no sign of grief for his daughter, but then, the house was in a state of permanent mourning.

‘What made you approach me?’ Huy asked him. ‘Merymose was not a fool; and you made a good impression when we first met. Now; your answer.’

‘I accept.’

‘Good. Not that you could have refused.’

‘Oh?’

‘You need the work. More importantly, you need Merymose’s killer. Thirdly, if you had refused, I would have told you I intended to point out to Kenamun that the door of the stall in which Merymose was found had been opened. The significance of that doesn’t seem to have occurred to him.’

Huy said nothing.

‘He’s a clever man,’ continued Ipuky; ‘and as devious as a politician needs to be. But he isn’t a detective.’

‘There is something I must ask,’ said Huy.

‘Yes?’

‘I do not know if you will like it.’

Ipuky sat back, folded his hands, and looked at Huy questioningly.

‘I need to know more about you.’

Ipuky’s face tightened. ‘How is that necessary?’

‘You want me to find Iritnefert’s killer.’

‘You find that unnatural in her father?’

‘No. But I imagine you know what is said about you.’

‘What is said about me,’ repeated Ipuky drily. Huy could not tell the thoughts behind the words. There was a long silence before Ipuky continued, ‘What is said about me should not concern you. I am content to let you form your own judgment of my character. Not that my motives should bother you.’ He made to rise, in order to conclude the interview. Huy knew at once that he was entering territory that was dangerous and interesting. He kept his own voice even.

‘That isn’t enough.’

His interlocutor raised his eyebrows a fraction, but remained seated.

‘I cannot proceed at all without your cooperation, and without your trust I will have no light in this darkness.’ Huy did not say that he was not prepared to exchange trust for trust with Ipuky. Hiring Huy would be a very effective way of keeping him under observation, and neutralising the effectiveness of his investigation. But why would a man like Ipuky go to such lengths, when, if he felt that Huy was a threat, he could so easily have him killed?

‘You’d better ask your questions,’ said Ipuky sourly, after a pause.

‘I want to talk to you about your children.’

‘I have already told you, they are too young.’ But one runnel of sweat began to trickle down his forehead from under his headdress.

‘I mean Iritnefert’s brothers.’

Ipuky sighed, flexing his hands as they lay at the edge of the table, and was silent for a long time.

‘They are dead.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then why are you so worried?’

At last Ipuky met his eye. Now he made no attempt to banish his feelings from his face. ‘Because I am not sure,’ he said at last. ‘You obviously know about my sons. I do not know how I can have fathered such children. No one will believe this, and I know exactly what the town says about me, but I loved Iritnefert. I am a man who destroys the women he lives with. My first wife left me, and she was right to do so, but I kept the child I cared about from her. Since I married again, I have had more children, but my second wife has turned into a shadow.’ He fell silent, looking into himself. Huy waited.

‘To my little children I am a shadow also. Even to myself I have become hollow.’ He spread his arms. ‘The blows life deals you make you stronger; but there comes a time when, if the blows do not stop, they begin to weaken even the strongest.’

‘Your sons?’

‘They are my punishment; but I do not know what I am being punished for. Why did Osiris have Set for a brother? Is it possible to carry evil within us, like a disease we transmit but like to think we do not suffer from ourselves?’ Again he paused, wearily, but now that he had started to talk something like relief entered his eyes and his voice. He wet his lips and swallowed before continuing.

‘I do not like to mention their names. To speak them perpetuates them. But I must. Three years separated the boys. Paheri was the older, poor Menna the younger. I had such hopes for them, and was even pleased when, at the age of seven, Paheri asked to enter the priesthood. Of course it was too early in his life to be certain that the gods had called him, but I could have wished for no better career for him than that of a priest-administrator. His resolve did not falter. But there were other things. When he was ten, he caught his younger brother stealing dates. For this transgression, he…’ Ipuky’s voice faltered. ‘No, I will not tell you. Menna was never well in his head or heart – Tawaret did not smile on his birth, and the torture he experienced at his brother’s hands pushed him forever into a lonely land inside himself…’ Again the gaunt man broke off. The room seemed to have become darker. Huy did not move.

‘Paheri never once looked at a woman, though of course by thirteen we were hoping to match him. At first we thought he would grow out of his phobia. Two years later, he entered the priesthood, attached to Surere. They stayed together throughout the reign of the Great Criminal, until the end.’

‘What happened?’

‘Paheri had a row with him. Paheri was furiously jealous. Of anyone. Of anything. Above all, his dislike of women developed into a hatred. Woman had contaminated Man ever since Nut first bent over Geb. That was the image that obsessed him: Nut, bent over across the sky, swallowing the sun, trapping Geb under her. I believe Surere encouraged him in this. His mother was the only exception. The woman who had let him out of the darkness of the birth-cave into the light.’

‘What happened to Menna?’ Huy spoke into the silence.

Ipuky looked up at him. ‘I think he is dead, now. For a long time I was afraid that he had survived the raids of the Khabiris on our last outposts in the north; but an infantry captain who had known him managed to make his way back to the Southern Capital and contacted my steward. He handed over a ring and an amulet that I recognised. I had given them to Menna when he first left to take up his post. He seemed to recover considerably after Paheri left home. I had to try to give him a chance to be independent. The job I found him was an undemanding clerical one. The governor was an old acquaintance, who knew of my son’s shortcomings.’

‘And Paheri?’

Ipuky’s voice was calm. ‘He believed in the Aten ferociously. When it was certain that the City of the Horizon would collapse, and all that it stood for, I wrote to him, to try to get him to save himself. He returned my letter spattered with his own blood, and a reply. In it he told me that the blood he had spilt over my traitor’s proposal – his own blood – was nothing to the blood of the traitors that he would shed if the Aten fell, and it was his lot to take vengeance.’

‘There was nothing but love in the teaching of the Aten,’ said Huy quietly.

‘There are causes, and there are warriors for causes,’ replied Ipuky, his voice as empty as the desert.

‘Why do you think he is here?’

Ipuky looked at him again. ‘Because of the killings. I want you to find him.’

‘But Iritnefert was his own sister.’

‘You do not know my son.’

There was a long silence, during which neither man looked at the other.

‘I will need free access to the palace compound. I will need to be able to go anywhere without being stopped,’ said Huy at last.

‘See my quartermaster. You may wear my livery. That will guarantee that the guards at the gates let you through. I will tell my steward that I am taking you on to the staff as – ‘ he paused for thought for a moment ‘ – as a tax consultant. The assessors will be working on last autumn’s crop soon enough, and the job will ensure that no one in the household asks any questions. You will also be able to come and go without anyone feeling the need to see you receiving direct orders from me.’ He gathered his robe about him. ‘And now – ‘

‘There is one last thing,’ said Huy.

Ipuky returned to his seat. ‘Yes?’

‘I need access to the Glory of Set.’

‘What?’ said Ipuky, sharply.

‘To the brothel, the Glory of Set.’

Ipuky sat back. ‘I do not know what you are talking about.’

Huy was taken aback. Why should Ipuky tell such a transparent lie? Ipuky must have read his thought in his eyes, for he quickly qualified what he had said by adding, ‘I do not see how that can have any bearing on who killed Iritnefert. Surely, after all I have told you, you must see that.’

‘Let me explain.’

The tall man leant forward, hands clasped, an expression of anxiety suddenly naked again on his face. ‘Surely you are not suggesting that my daughter – ? I know she was a wild spirit, but – ‘

‘No,’ Huy reassured him. ‘I do not think so. But there may be a connection.’ He explained, briefly, about Isis.

‘I have never been there, and I do not know who does; but it is powerfully protected,’ Ipuky said wearily. ‘You must forgive me for not being more helpful. For some years now I have not been much in society. I have preferred books and silence for company. In any case, what excuse could I possibly invent for you to go there?’

‘Nevertheless, I need to go. There are questions I must ask there.’

Ipuky looked scornful. ‘And do you think they will answer them?’

‘If they are paid.’

Ipuky shook his grey head. The dull gold in his headdress shimmered as it caught the light. ‘They will never tell you. They are already paid, more than any bribe could tempt them, to be discreet. The clients of that place are among the most powerful men and women in the Southern Capital. Even Horemheb has failed to have it closed.’

‘Maybe I can find a lever for Horemheb to do so. And if I can, then it would be a lever you could hand to him.’

‘I am no longer interested in politics,’ said Ipuky. ‘But I am interested to see where your cunning takes you, and you must do anything you think necessary to stop the horror that has begun. Come back tomorrow at this time.’

Huy stood up, bowed briefly to his new master, and made for the doorway. As he reached it Ipuky called to him once more.

‘You think I am as cold as stone,’ he said. ‘Many do. That is my protection. But I must know who killed my daughter. Find him, Huy, and when you have, bring him to me. Death would be too kind an end for a man who has done what he has, and I do not want him to escape into it.’

The Controller of the Silver Mines laid his arms on the table in front of him and clasped his hands together, sinking his head. Huy looked down at him and fired a last question: ‘Have you seen Surere?’

Ipuky looked up, but his face remained rigid. If anything was detectable there, it was surprise. ‘I had done with him years ago.’

‘Perhaps he has not done with you.’

‘Awaken us from this nightmare, Huy. Soon.’

‘I will,’ said Huy. Ipuky’s confession had lit a bright torch in the dark labyrinth of his investigation.

Since Merymose’s death, Huy had carried a dagger. It was an old thing he had had for years but only recently learnt to use, taught by one of the boatswains in Taheb’s fleet. Its blade was two-edged, and made of heavy bronze, the grooves chased like lotus stems. It was fitted into an antelope-horn hilt carved at the top with the Beast’s head. That night, when he awoke in the full certainty that someone else was in the room, he reached for it, where it usually lay by his headrest; but he had barely moved before he felt its point at his throat.

‘You have a lot to learn,’ said Surere’s voice in the darkness. Huy could feel his breath, and smell the mint he chewed to sweeten it.

‘And you have learnt much,’ replied Huy.

‘In prison, if you do not learn stealth, you die.’

‘Why are you still here? What has happened to your mission?’

The pressure of the knife at his throat relaxed. ‘The king will not let me go.’

‘Is it he who is keeping you safe?’

‘No.’

‘Who is?’

Surere laughed softly. ‘Light a lamp. But keep the wick low.’

Huy struck a flint and the lamp spread a tight circle of yellow light, so deep that it drew objects into it. Surere’s face was sucked forwards. It was thinner, and the eyes were sunken; but they were alert, and burned brightly.

‘Why have you come here again? You risk much.’

‘I need to talk. There is no one but you in this city.’

‘There is your protector.’

Surere laughed drily.

‘How else can I think you have survived here untraced so long?’ Huy persisted.

‘The search for me has died down. They think I have gone.’

‘Well, it is none of my business now.’

Surere’s eyes darted over his face. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I was never your hunter, Surere.’

‘You think I killed the girls?’

‘Did you?’

‘I wouldn’t tell you. But perhaps I desire to make my peace with the man who did.’ Surere laughed again. ‘Under our laws, you can die for killing a hawk, a cat, or any other of the Sacred Animals. But why not kill a child if it is for the child’s good? Tell me, Huy. I am confused by what the king tells me in dreams, and I need your help. The Aten was clear; but now I no longer know. I am confused between vengeance and salvation.’

Huy raised himself on one elbow. ‘What are you saying?’ He wanted to turn the lamp up, to see the man’s eyes better. Jailed shadows flickered on the walls. Above all, he wanted to get up, but Surere still held the knife close to his throat, and every muscle in the man’s body was taut. He truly had the supernatural alertness of the hunted.

‘The age is evil. After the light, there is darkness. What is the use of continuing our race if it is to go on in darkness?’

‘Is there any other way to bring us back to the light? I thought that was the purpose of your mission.’

Surere’s eyes wavered, unsure. ‘Perhaps the way is lost.’

‘Who has told you that?’

‘No one.’

‘Has the king spoken to you of this?’

‘Stop it!’ A dry sob broke from the man’s lips before he brought himself back under control. ‘Forgive me. I have tried all my life to live in Truth. Now I no longer know where I am.’

‘Who is the king? Who is it that you really see?’ Huy asked softly, after a pause.

‘I have told you! Our king! Akhenaten!’

‘You have seen him again?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Where do you see him?’

Huy saw that he had pressed too hard, too fast. The cunning was back in Surere’s face. ‘Why? Do you want to take him from me? You are working for them now.’

‘I work for no one.’

‘Do you think I don’t recognise Ipuky’s livery? What’s your game?’

‘I have to eat.’

‘So you compromise,’ rejoined Surere scornfully. ‘At least you have chosen a good man.’

‘But he abandoned the Aten to save himself, like the others.’

‘And what have you done?’ said Surere. ‘I have been thinking. I have been too quick to condemn, where in time I might redeem. You did not know Ipuky before?’

‘No.’

‘He was much in love with his wife. She ran rings round him, but he loved her all the same. And when she left, he clung to her shadow in their daughter.’

‘And maltreated her?’ Huy was still not sure how he would have answered his own question.

‘I cannot believe that.’ Surere’s eyes had changed again, cloudy in remembering.

‘You talk of redeeming,’ said Huy, gently. The point of the dagger drooped towards the floor. Huy looked at Surere. He was taller than Huy, and labour had made him sinewy; but he was older, and his guard had dropped. Now was the time to take him. But if Huy overpowered him, what then? He would have forfeited the fragile trust Surere had put in him, and if he turned him over to Kenamun, he would lose all trace of the delicate thread that seemed, somehow, to link Surere with the girls’ deaths. Kenamun would use pliers and the needle to destroy what was left of balance in Surere’s confused mind, and then extort a confession.

‘Then you cannot have killed,’ Huy continued.

‘But it would not matter if I have. Death is a redemption, too, if it saves the innocent from corruption.’

Huy felt the world close in on him. He seemed to be sitting at his own centre, in the innermost room of his heart, as he heard the words. The two men, forced by their fate into this intimacy that was not intimacy at all, sat in silence, the words used up. In the end Surere stood up.

‘Do not follow me, Huy,’ he said with his old authority.

‘Tell me who is protecting you.’

Surere smiled. ‘Someone who owes property to the king.’

Huy looked troubled. ‘You are going, and I do not know if I have helped you. I do not even know if I should.’

‘You should turn me in; but then where would you be? Do not attempt to follow me.’

Surere put down the knife, turned his back, and made for the steps. Huy listened to him descending them, then the soft creak and click of the door. After that, night wrapped him in silence.

Getting Huy into the Glory of Set had forced Ipuky to take his steward into his confidence. The simplest method was to send Huy as a client. He would wear private clothes and say that he was a merchant from the Northern Capital. Expensive jewellery and make-up completed the display of wealth, though it made Huy self-conscious and uneasy.

The place was constructed on the same plan as the City of Dreams, though its decoration and furniture were richer. No one had questioned him or seemed suspicious. He was led from the neutral entrance hall by a quiet, equally neutral young man, who might have been a civil servant, into a room in which the walls carried friezes that depicted the perversions which the brothel traded in. As his eye travelled over them, the trepidation which Huy had felt turned to contempt, and then to pity, for here were nothing but sorry fragments of imagination.

‘Please choose,’ said the young man, indicating the walls.

‘Choose?’

‘What you would like to do. Or would you like to watch? Some do, at first, to get them in the mood. One of our best customers only watches.’ The young man managed to combine collusion with the antiseptic disinterest of a nurse. He stood too close to Huy for comfort, invading his space. Huy could smell the sweet perfume of the oil he used on his hair and face.

He looked at the walls again. People were depicted in neat rows, engaged in activities which belied the formal expressions on their faces. The first scene showed a pair of children whipping a tied girl, perhaps their nurse. In another, an elderly woman forced a pronged implement into the anus of a muscular man wearing the mask of Horns. Further on, a young couple, tied back to back, were threatened by three creatures carrying torches. A little girl was shown twisting fish-hooks into the penis of a man suspended from his wrists by bronze wire, and in a fifth scene a man and a woman on all fours were yolked together, drawing a miniature cart, whipped by a dwarf charioteer.

‘I’m looking for a particular girl,’ said Huy.

‘Aren’t we all?’ replied the young man with a crispness bordering on impatience. Huy felt anger rise into his mouth, but he made himself remain calm as he described the dead girl from the land of the Twin Rivers.

‘Never seen one like that,’ said the man promptly. ‘What did she do? Hurt or get hurt? Or maybe you like a bit of both. Now – ‘

He did not finish the sentence. Huy had grabbed him by the throat, lifted him from his seat, and slammed the back of his head against the wall with a force that cracked the plaster. A small portion of the scene showing the couple with the cart flaked away and broke on the floor. Blood dribbled from the man’s mouth.

‘Just tell me when she left,’ said Huy. The man spat in his face. Huy held on to the thin throat until the face above it turned blue and tears appeared. When the neck started to stretch, and the eyes gaped, he relaxed the pressure.

‘Tell me.’

The young man, no longer so neutral, his wig awry, gasped and coughed for air.

‘…doing my job…’ he managed to get out.

‘What job?’ Huy tightened his grip.

‘No.’

‘Then tell me.’

Limply, the young man did so. The girl had arrived from somewhere in the north early in the season. She seemed, in his words, to have some experience of what they required, and they put her through her paces. Huy found that, during much of what he had to listen to over the next few minutes, his only defence against the temptation to break the young man over his knee was to invoke the Horus within him.

‘And when she left?’

‘It was unusual. There’s very little goes on here that is true. Some of them really enjoy it, but mostly it’s acted. So it wasn’t as if she was being maltreated.’ He looked at Huy half-apologetically, cringing, as if he feared another blow. ‘But then we heard that she’d been killed.’

‘Beaten, raped and stabbed.’

‘That didn’t happen here.’

‘Who were her clients?’

The young man’s face froze. ‘Who are you?’

‘Vengeance,’ said Huy, meaning it, but speaking the word before he realised how theatrical it must sound. He had reckoned without the effect of his anger and his appearance on the man, who trembled. For a moment there was silence, punctuated, from somewhere deeper inside the building, by one long, isolated scream of pain.

‘Did Horemheb send you?’ asked the young man, finally. ‘Yes.’

‘I don’t understand. The people who come here are powerful. Their delights hurt no one. Why shouldn’t they indulge them?’

‘Horemheb understands that he cannot touch you – yet. But he would not want you to think that he had forgotten you. Who were her clients?’

An unpleasant expression slunk on to the young man’s face. ‘I do not believe you are from Horemheb. My masters and he understand one another now.’ He gave a curt signal with his head. Huy realised too late that the man’s eyes had switched direction to focus on someone behind him. He did not see his assailants. He was taken from behind by two men who pinioned his arms and pitched forward into the room, the young man darting out of the way to allow his saviours to smash Huy against the wall in his turn. He felt his teeth scrape against the plaster, then someone caught hold of his hair and pulled his head back. He had a close view of one of the pictures painted on the wall that he had not noticed before. Now, in a moment of crisis, he took it in with startling clarity. Two elderly men were crouched over a naked girl who was strapped face down to some form of wooden rack. Using sharp needles and ink, they were in the act of tattooing something on the girl’s back. One worked while the other watched, clutching his grotesquely enlarged erection.

The work was almost complete and the result was clearly visible: curled around the apex of the left scapula was a small, crudely-executed scorpion.

‘Not the wall,’ he heard the young man’s voice say. ‘There’s been enough damage done as it is.’ They pulled him round and beat his head against a stool until his brain boiled. Then blood swam before his eyes and there was blackness.