City of the Dead

ELEVEN

‘What has happened to your face?’

Ankhsenpaamun was fascinated, but also concerned. Huy rejoiced at this. It meant that she was beginning to see him as her route to survival. If anything happened to him, she would suffer. Her little hand came up to touch the broken cheek. Her fingertips felt cool and kind.

‘I was attacked,’ replied Huy. He had not yet returned to his house and the intense activity of the past days had worn him out. The fight with Kenamun seemed to have happened weeks ago.

‘Attacked?’ Immediately, her tone became imperious. Nobody was going to forget who she was, and he had spoken too abruptly, without respect. There was something else: someone had dared to molest one of her people. In her heart, had Huy become one of her family?

‘Please do not ask me now,’ he said, more humbly. ‘I have a favour to beg.’

‘Yes?’

He picked his words carefully. ‘Now that the great god Amun has decreed that your grandfather should be heir to Nebkheprure Tutankhamun, the burial of the god-king is assured, and we must leave the city.’

She looked at him acutely. ‘Don’t confuse me with your formality. The real reason we must go is because, although Horemheb has lost the Golden Chair for now, he has not given up.’

‘Yes, Lady.’

She smiled. ‘I thought so. My heart tells me things, now that the king is dead. I begin to live for myself more, and for the pharaoh that I carry.’

‘May he sit on the Golden Chair.’

‘Or may she do so.’

Huy nodded. ‘Of course. But it is rare.’

‘But it has happened. Makare Hatshepsut was pharaoh in her time.’

‘Are we not back to an old contention?’

She smiled again. ‘I am content to leave, if I have Ay’s assurance that the succession will pass to the child in my birth-cave.’

‘I am sure that he will give it. I guarantee it.’

‘But can I trust you?’

‘Yes,’ said Huy, though his heart was hollow. How polluted man’s thinking had become, when deceit had to be used to guarantee the safety of the innocent. Trust, duty, hope – these were concepts that man should never have had – he was not up to them.

‘My own people tell me Horemheb is angry.’

‘Yes?’

‘Kenamun is dead. Horemheb thinks Ay’s agents did it. Something about a body downriver, which a fisherman noticed as the matet boat rose in the sky. But the crocodiles dragged it under.’

‘I need your help.’

‘Yes?’

‘To leave here, we must travel by the river.’

‘Of course.’

‘I cannot organise a boat alone. We must leave discreetly. Please understand the need for this.’ It was beyond Huy to explain why, but he still hoped to leave behind them convincing proof of the queen’s death.

He had expected Ankhsenpaamun to be disagreeable; but her mood had changed, and she entered into the conspiracy with enthusiasm.

‘You must ask Taheb,’ he suggested.

‘Why don’t you?’

‘I cannot.’

‘Why not? You knew her well once.’

‘Once!’

‘Do you think she cannot be trusted?’

‘I do not think that. But no approach from me would be fitting.’

‘Why not?’ repeated the queen.

Huy fought with his pride. But there was a more important reason: Taheb would not argue if the request came from the queen herself. ‘Because we do not know each other as we once did. But was she not a friend of the court? I saw her at Nezemmut’s wedding to Horemheb.’

The queen considered. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Firstly, to Napata.’

‘That is to the south!’

‘They are loyal. There is nothing to the north but greater danger. And you cannot stay here.’

‘So you have told me.’

She remained silent for a long time. Then, ‘Did you say ask?’ she said frostily.

‘Tell,’ suggested Huy, fighting exhaustion.

‘Command.’

Huy was silent.

‘Taheb will help,’ said the queen slyly. ‘Why do you think my little intelligence network is the only part of the royal palace that remains even halfway efficient and loyal?’ She paused, looking sad. ‘But now it is crumbling too. Of course I recognise the need to depart.’

When Huy returned to his house he hardly recognised it. Nothing was missing, but nothing was out of place either. Everything, even the scrolls on the shelves, was meticulously ordered, and the images of Bes and Horus which presided over his central room were free of dust and sand for the first time in years. The yard was swept and the bathroom so tidy and clean it seemed inconceivable that two nights ago it had witnessed a bloody and fatal battle.

He walked through the rooms which he would soon have to leave forever. Into whose keeping could he place this building, whose arms had encircled his battered body and protected it at the end of so many lonely, desperate days? There would be no time. He would lock up and leave, and that would be all. No doubt later some little official would come snuffling round, because the house did not conform to accepted principles of ownership. There would come a time perhaps when the guardians of conformity would control all life.

He found the note hidden carefully under the statue of Bes. A scrap of paper bearing Ay’s cartouche. Remaining only long enough to wash, shave, apply fresh make-up, and change, Huy set off again to see the pharaoh-elect.

He noticed that there were twice as many soldiers in Ay’s livery on guard, and he recognised several former members of Horemheb’s Black Medjays among them; but Ay was expecting him, and he was admitted quickly. The old man received him in a crowded room through which a number of body servants and scribes passed. At two tables, secretaries were issuing written orders. Huy might have expected to see Ineny playing a prominent part in the preparation for Ay’s new status, but decided not to ask what had become of him.

Ay looked younger than Huy had ever seen him, and stood erect, like a youth. His hair was freshly dyed, and his skin shone with oil. He wore a blue-and-gold headdress and a full-length cream tunic, with a pleated kilt that reached to below the knee. His sandals were polished leather, with gold fittings in the shape of snakes and scarabs. He was heavily scented with seshen, and his make-up was fashionably pale. His heavy collar matched his headdress, and the balancing mankhet which hung down his back was of gold, in the shape of the tjet amulet.

He was a king already.

‘Huy.’

‘Lord.’

Ay smiled broadly. ‘I have good news for you.’

‘What is it?’

‘The means to make your scheme succeed. The gods have sent us a gift.’

‘What?’

Ay’s face became graver. ‘Of course what falls happily for us is also a tragedy. But if life has a purpose, so perhaps does death.’

‘What has happened?’ Huy’s eyes prickled. He blinked to rest them, and forced them wide open. He had smudged a crumb of kohl on his lower right eyelash, and it blurred the foreground of his vision.

‘I have a body for you to bury as the former queen.’

Huy felt energy surge back into him. ‘That indeed is a gift. Where is it?’

‘On the river.On its way here from the Northern Capital.’

‘But who -?’

Ay was solemn, it may be better if Ankhsi does not know – it is little Setepenra.’

‘What happened?’

Ay spread his hands. ‘We do not know exactly. A snakebite, probably. She was in the palace garden when suddenly she cried out and fell. They called doctors immediately, of course. But by the time they arrived it was too late.’

‘When did this happen?’

‘The message came by carrier pigeon yesterday, soon after the sun had passed his zenith. I have sent a courier north to find out more, but we sent another pigeon back with orders to put the princess’s body on a falcon ship and bring it here. My people will meet it some way downriver of the city, and bring it here after dark. I hope now you will learn to trust me, Huy. I think I have repaid my debt to you.’

Huy looked inwards. If Setepenra’s death had indeed been an accident, it could not have happened at a better time. The girl was Akhenaten’s sixth daughter, two years younger than Ankhsenpaamun, and in face and body very similar to her sister.

‘What about your other granddaughter in the Northern Capital?’

Ay looked at him narrowly. ‘What reservations do you have now?’ He broke off to smile thinly. ‘I was wrong to offer you the archives. I should have suggested Kenamun’s job; but I think you’d be too good at it for comfort.’ He paused to answer an enquiry from one of the order-issuing secretaries, and then drew Huy apart from the throng of people to stand by a large window opening to a view of the great temple of Amun.

‘The princess Neferneferura will soon be leaving the Black Land. For a long time I have been in negotiations, through the vizir of the Northern Capital, with King Burraburiash of the Land of the Twin Rivers. An alliance with them now will be a bulwark against the Hittites. Now the princess is going to marry the king’s son.’

‘So, all Akhenaten’s surviving daughters will be accounted for.’

‘None of us likes loose ends,’ said Ay lightly, and without waiting for an answer, returned to the centre of the room. ‘By the way,’ he said over his shoulder and indicating one of the secretaries. ‘This is Kenna. You will be liaising with him from now on.’ The secretary, an intelligent man of thirty, with close-cropped hair, looked up unsmilingly at Huy and nodded an abrupt greeting.

Ay kept his word. He even managed to provide an excuse for Senseneb to leave the doctors’ compound and come to the palace without arousing the suspicions of Merinakhte, by summoning her to consult with him about the arrangements for her father’s burial, which would take place soon after the king’s. As chief physician, he would be buried in a place of honour on the fringes of the valley. The body of the little princess was brought secretly to a ground-floor room of Ay’s palace and there Senseneb applied what little make-up and hair dye was necessary to turn the dead girl into her sister’s double. Once dressed in a set of the queen’s robes, the transformation was complete. Keeping it from Ankhsenpaamun was a problem which the queen solved herself, saying that she did not want to see the body which would be left in her place, or know the identity of its owner. She would offer prayers for the safe passage of its soul to Thoth and Osiris, and to Isis and Nephthys.

‘How is your wound?’ asked Senseneb, when they were together at his house.

‘Sore.’

She smiled, touching it. ‘The stitches should stay in three more days, but I think you have healed enough for me to take them out before I leave.’ Her voice trailed off as she spoke the last words.

‘Have courage.’

She looked at him, taking his hand. ‘I am trying. But my heart tells me I will never see you again.’

‘I will follow as soon as I am sure Ay is not planning to send anyone after you.’

‘He gave his word.’

Huy smiled.

‘Has a boat been arranged?’

‘A light sailing barge of Taheb’s fleet with papyrus from the Delta is taking you. The papyrus will be delivered at Soleb, but the captain has orders to take you on to Napata.’

‘Can he be trusted?’

‘The boatowner can. She is loyal to the queen. As for the captain, there is gold for him to collect in Napata – for his personal use.’

Senseneb smiled sadly. ‘The last thing I shall ever want again when this is over is adventure.’

Huy was silent, then looked at her seriously. ‘There is something else.’

‘Yes?’ The gravity of his voice scared her.

‘If, when you get to Napata, for any reason you do not feel safe, you must take the queen with you and travel on to Meroe. No one from the Southern Capital would follow you that far, and there are people in the far south who are still loyal to the line of Akhenaten. They will protect his daughter.’

Sensenseb’s head swam. She did not want to go to Meroe. All her big city instincts rose up against it. At least Napata was still recognisably a Black Land town, belonging to the southern part of the empire. Meroe was at its farthest limits. It was further from the Southern Capital than the Great Green was to the north. Privately she made up her mind that the danger would have to be very great to make her retreat so far, and she doubted if Ankhsenpaamun would be eager to go either; but she said nothing. Her heart told her that she was embarking on an adventure so mad that she would regret it for the rest of her life.

‘When do we leave?’ she asked, knowing that it was too late to back out now.

‘Dawn.’

‘So soon?’

‘Yes.’

‘But what about us?’

‘There is no time. Princess Setepenra’s body will be taken to the royal palace today. The queen will remain there until tonight, when she will board the boat at the southern quay. You must return to your house, tell Hapu, pack what you need, and as soon as it is dark, come back to me here. Today you must behave as if it were any ordinary day.’

‘When shall I come tonight?’

‘As soon as it is safe.’

She looked at him. ‘But if I am not leaving until dawn, how will we pass the time?’

‘Sealing the knot,’ said Huy, and kissed her.

As the sun passed from his matet to his seqtet boat, Senseneb’s apprehension gave place to excitement. She had packed a leather satchel with Hapu’s help, and found that she needed very little, though she wondered how much the queen would be taking, and decided then that a little more than what she needed would do.

Her Ka went on ahead of her, and she began to wonder what the house in Napata would be like. She had not seen it since childhood, and she thought about the couple who had always been its caretakers. She had sent a letter to warn them of her arrival with a friend. They would not recognise the queen. How would they react when they saw her, Senseneb, grown up? What questions about her life would they ask? Would she dare tell them that her husband would be joining them later – or would that be a hopeful lie to tempt the anger of the gods? She came to realise that her only regret was that Huy was not leaving with her. Leaving the Southern Capital, she came to realise, was not a matter of regret at all.

She had just given orders to Hapu about the disposal of her father’s little menagerie, which she was certainly not leaving to the mercy of Merinakhte, when the doctor himself arrived. Her heart beat so fast that her chest hurt, her stomach felt hollow and her head flew; but since he appeared to notice nothing she assumed that she had herself under control.

Merinakhte had dressed up. He had rubbed ochre into his cheeks, and lined his eyes with kohl. He wore a pleated over-kilt in a lattice pattern, knotted at the side, with a fringed sash and a decorated apron which fell below the knee. His tunic had open, pleated sleeves.

‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

He smiled ruefully. ‘I am glad you’ve noticed that I made an effort. I’m not going anywhere. I have come to apologise. What I said to you was cruel. I beg your forgiveness and ask you to accept this gift.’

She looked at his grey eyes carefully, but they were without expression. She noticed with alarm that he was looking round the room into which Hapu had led him. Would he see signs of her departure?

‘I would have come sooner but your gate has always been locked. Have you been away?’

‘No – just busy.’

‘Here.’ He held out a glass jar, worked in a blue-and-white pattern of interwoven ribbons. Its base and top were chased gold, the base sculpted into waves and the top in the form of a sea-beast, riding more waves and carrying a trumpet-shell. it is from Kheftyu. An ointment perfume made of mermaids’ milk.’

She must not antagonise him. The jar was heavy. The glass it was made of must be very thick. She lifted the lid, and released a delightful odour.

‘Don’t use it now,’ he said, hurriedly, it would be a pity to waste it.’

A faint warning sounded in her heart, but she dismissed it as part of the revulsion he had always engendered in her. And yet now he seemed a new man – perfectly sincere. Was it possible that his divided Ka had begun to find a way towards unity?

‘Thank you,’ was all she said.

To her relief, he turned to go. ‘I must be at the House of Healing. I wanted to make my peace with you.’

‘You have.’

‘Good.’ He hesitated. ‘My offer stands. The love bond is there for me.’

‘I am sorry.’

He bowed his head. ‘Well, if you change your mind…’ He left the sentence hanging. ‘There may come a time when you will be glad to.’