City of the Dead

FOUR

‘It was an accident?’

‘A hunting accident. Yes. Most tragic.’

Huy looked out of the broad window of the room towards a columned gallery, beyond which the sun hung in a hard blue sky. Below, the river ran between its dun banks, crowded on this side with the jumble of mean houses that formed the district where Huy lived.

Much had happened in the two days which had passed since the hunting party had secretly brought the king’s body back, although no public announcements had been made by the newsbreakers. That Huy was being given privileged information had been impressed upon him at the beginning of this interview. But the city was already full of rumours, and there was an indefinable tension in the air, which Huy had even picked up in the harbour quarter, where people’s concern for the pharaoh was slight.

Now, he tried to absorb the shock of the king’s death. He looked at Ay, standing by the window. In age, Ay had grown a Paunch, but his bird-like, intellectual head had barely changed. There were wrinkles, and the hairline had receded; but the hair was dyed dark, and Huy would have had no difficulty in recognising the man he had known, distantly, at the City of the Horizon.

“When will the news be broken?’ Huy asked.

It must be soon. You are aware how people are beginning to fear something. Neither the king or queen have been seen in public, and that will strike everyone as strange, especially after the announcement of the queen’s pregnancy.’ Ay spoke with formal stiffness, which Huy supposed had become a habit after years in politics.

‘Why has it been delayed?’

Ay shook his head. ‘Horemheb has decreed it. Of course, he tells me it is for reasons of security. But if the king’s death was simply a question of a tragic accident, what reason could there be for secrecy?’

Huy reflected that the wheel had come full circle, and tried to deduce what Ay was deliberately omitting from his account. In the old days, at the City of the Horizon, Huy had been a scribe in the legal section of Akhenaten’s court, and now and then had to do with colleagues attached to Ay’s office. After the fall of Akhenaten, and the ruin of his city, Huy imagined that Ay must either have died, or escaped into one of the friendly neighbouring countries – Mitanni or Babylon, perhaps – to live out his life in self-imposed exile. But even before the court had returned to the Southern Capital, Huy had seen Ay with Horemheb escorting the young Tutankhamun to the ritual of Opening the Mouth of his predecessor, Smenkhkare. Ay was clearly a survivor.

Huy had returned to the Southern Capital himself soon after, and, forbidden to continue to practise as a scribe because of his association with the disgraced Akhenaten, he had turned, partly by chance, to solving the kind of problems people had which they did not wish the Medjays involved with. His association with the great men of the city a few years earlier seemed to have borne fruit at last. Now he had been summoned to Ay’s presence in secret, on the recommendation of his former employer Ipuky, another man who had managed to escape unscathed after the fall of Akhenaten.

And now Ay was asking him to solve a problem. At least it looked as if the conversation was going that way. Quickly Huy ran through what Ay had told him.

Two days earlier, Nehesy and the hunting party which had accompanied the king into the desert had returned with his chariot and horses, and the bodies of the king and his charioteer. Knowing what the public outcry would be if he rode openly into the city, and scared about his own fate as the professional in charge of the expedition, Nehesy had made sure to return at nightfall. He had then gone straight to Horemheb with the news of what had happened.

‘What happened then?’ Huy asked the old man. They were both seated by a low table on which wine and dates had been placed, more as a gesture than genuine hospitality. What they had to talk about was too serious to be discussed over food and drink.

Ay shrugged briefly. ‘All the information I can give you is what I was told by Horemheb, so bear that in mind. Of course he had to share the news with me immediately. I had just retired to read when his messenger came to fetch me.’

‘Where were the bodies?’

‘We had them both taken back to the palace. The charioteer was laid out in his quarters and the king was placed in the audience chamber. The first thing to do was summon doctors, and then tell the queen.’

Huy shifted in his chair. ‘Of course.’ It occurred to him that the queen’s isolation was not only to the advantage of Horemheb, but Ay’s as well. Ay had no son; but Huy had a shrewd idea that the limit of his ambition would not be reached by seeing his daughter Nezemmut as queen; and if Horemheb had recently lost a son, Ay had lost a grandson. Nezemmut could have more children. Ay could take a younger wife if he chose and try to father sons himself. Neither he nor Horemheb would want to run the risk of seeing Ankhsenpaamun give successful birth at last to a male child.

‘How is the queen?’ he asked.

‘Distraught,’ replied Ay.

‘What will happen to her?’

Ay looked surprised. ‘What should happen to her? She will remain in the palace. She carries the future pharaoh, perhaps.

The gods may even decree that if a girl-child is born she will reign as king. It has happened before.’

‘And in the meantime?’

Ay avoided looking at him. ‘That has yet to be discussed. We must ask the gods for guidance. I imagine… a new regency… as a temporary measure, for the stability of the country. Unlike Smenkhkare, the king died leaving no close relative to whom the crown may be given, except for the still-to-be-born in the queen’s birth-cave.’

‘How did the accident happen?’ asked Huy.

‘That I do not know. But I have seen the wounds. They are ghastly. The charioteer was almost cut in two by one of the wheels.’

‘And the king?’

‘He must have been thrown clear when the chariot capsized, and struck his head on a rock.’ Ay paused.

‘Those are the doctors’ conclusions?’

‘Yes. They are self-evident. And there is no reason, really, to suspect anything other than an accident – though what the pharaoh was doing out hunting alone with his charioteer is still a mystery. Still, there are no grounds for believing it was the fault of the rest of the hunting party, and so they have been spared death.’ Ay poured wine and drank it in hurried sips. Huy saw that his lower lip was moist and slack.

The former scribe paused in thought before speaking again. ‘What a tragedy this is,’ he said formally. ‘For the king’s family, and for the country.’

‘Indeed,’ replied Ay. ‘And the queen is left alone.’

Huy waited in the silence, wondering what was coming next; but the old man appeared to expect him to speak.

‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked.

Ay leant forward. ‘Despite all the evidence, I do not believe this was an accident. Too much is at stake. It reeks of coincidence. I want you to find out what really happened. I can fund you, and I can give you names; but I cannot help you more than that. Do you understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘Will you do it?’

‘It will be difficult.’

Ay smiled. ‘I have not heard that difficulty deters you.’

‘Let me make plans, and then I will report to you.’

Ay waved a querulous hand. ‘I do not wish to know your plans, and your contact with me must remain secret. I will send my messenger to you when I consider it safe to do so. Everything you do you must do as discreetly as possible. I chose you because I trust Ipuky, and because despite your obvious worth you are little known in this city.’

‘What is your objective?’

Ay looked at him. ‘If you accept this job, I become your employer. My objective should not concern you. But you are an intelligent man and you will draw your own conclusions. Be sure that I will reward loyalty, Huy; just as certainly as I will punish betrayal.’

‘I will need access to the palace compound.’

‘I can arrange that. But you may not wear my livery. Nothing must connect you with me. I will have you attached to the palace as a house priest’s assistant. They will be preparing the king’s Book of the Dead for him to take to the tomb.’

‘What must I do? I cannot work as a scribe.’

‘I know that, Huy. You will probably have to do nothing. There are many servants in the palace in that position. The important thing is that the badge of office will get you past the guards.’

‘I will have to talk to the huntsman. I will have to see the chariot, and visit the place where the accident happened.’

All that is clear to me. How you do it, however, is your problem.’

Public events hurried the next days past, making it impossible for Huy to do more than lay outline plans and digest what he had been told. It was clear that he was about to wade in deeper water than he had ever entered before; and he trusted his paymaster no more than anyone else who might have been involved in the king’s death. If it had not been an accident… There was nothing yet to suggest that it had been anything else, and possibly only Ay’s devious mind would see intrigue where there was none.

When the death was announced, messengers on horseback – faster than river boats – were dispatched to the north and south to carry the news as far as the Delta and Meroe. The city prepared itself for the initial period of mourning which would last for the seventy days the embalmers took to prepare the body for the grave. In the meantime, many additional teams of workmen were exempted from mourning inactivity and sent to the valley to speed up the work on the king’s tomb, which would be by no means ready to receive him properly, as work on it had only been in progress since his accession nine years earlier, but which would have to fulfil its function as best it could. There were some who thought the haste with which this work was set in motion indecent, but as the orders were issued from the palace itself no one could criticise them openly.

Huy found the hurry interesting: Tutankhamun was, it appeared, going to get little of the dignity which was normally associated with the burial of a monarch. He watched as hastily from one quarter and another of the country the funeral offerings and furniture were gathered together under the quartermaster of the royal tombs. They were displayed on public view for a month before being consigned to the burial chamber. Huy went to look at them, and it grieved him to see what poor stuff it was. Some of the trappings had been lifted brazenly from Smenkhkare’s burial, and though the workmanship and the carving and the volume of precious metal and stone befitted a king, Huy, who, as a child, remembered watching the great entombment of Nebmare Amenophis, was sorry to see how dismissively the young pharaoh was being treated. He was certain that if it had been within her power, Tutankhamun’s widow would have taken steps to prevent such cut-price treatment.

Shabbily dressed, Huy crossed the River by one of the black ferry boats and visited the tomb builders. Most, caked with sweat and dust, were too busy to talk, but he recognised one overseer whose acquaintance he had made years earlier, and who remembered him.

‘Good day,’ said the man, looking at him. ‘It’s been years. You don’t look as if they have been kind.’

‘I manage.’

‘That’s just about what I’d call it, to look at you. Have a drink.’

They retired to the shelter of an awning made of an old tarpaulin stretched over driftwood stakes, and the overseer broke the clay seals off two jars of black beer he had resting in a water jug to keep them cool. They drank in silence, looking down over the scorching valley to the sluggish river below. The season was progressing. Perhaps some of the haste was due to the need to get the king buried before the flood came. Already, barely distinguishable, there were traces of the telltale red sand in the water.

‘How is the work?’

‘It’s a rush job,’ said the overseer. ‘But the main tunnelling was done already, so it’s been a question of plastering and painting. And a lot of that was at least sketched out, so it won’t look too terrible by the time we’re finished.’

‘May I see?’

The overseer laughed. ‘Quite a student of these things, aren’t you? You can see the antechamber. Beyond that, the layout’s secret.’

Acknowledging this, Huy finished his beer and entered the tomb. Inside, it was cool, though the men working by the light of oil lamps glistened with sweat. He came across one mural which was fresh, the outline only just worked out, with the Painter just starting on the colouring. It showed a large group. Ay, depicted, as he always liked to be, as a vigorous young man, and dressed in regalia which came very close to those of a king, was performing the ritual of the Opening of the Mouth upon Tutankhamun.

As a mark of respect, the picture was blameless. But Huy found it disturbing that Ay – on whose orders it must have been made – had accorded himself the honour which should fall to the pharaoh’s successor.

‘Do you know when this painting was planned?’ Huy asked the man working on it, a plump fellow with pendulous breasts and a careful eye.

The artist looked at Huy briefly. ‘Since the king died,’ he replied in an undertone, before turning all of his attention back to his work.

Huy made his way home thoughtfully, grateful for the cool and solitude of his little house. He changed out of his workman’s disguise and bathed, wondering what the significance of the painting might be. There was no representation of Horemheb at all in the tomb; but that could be explained by the fact that the general had only just married, peripherally, into the royal household, and, also perhaps that, secure in the knowledge of his power, he had preferred to remain aloof. But Ay appeared to be indulging in vulgar, pre-emptive and over-anxious claim-staking. Perhaps by it he hoped to win the favour of the pharaoh’s Ka. It was certainly true that the richest among the funeral gifts had been donated by him. If Horemheb and Ay were engaged in a race for the throne, then Ay had the stronger claim; but his power was less. Caught in the middle would be the queen.

The more Huy thought about her, the more her situation worried him. If she were not adequately protected, she could be plucked out of history leaving no trace behind. Her aunt was unlikely to intercede for her, and although Ay was her grandfather, the family tie was too remote to weigh in the balance against his ambition. He was her potential ally, but that was cold comfort, for if Ay gained the throne he would not be likely to show mercy to the parent of the rightful heir.

The first day at the palace Huy kept his head down, watching. He had arrived to find that he was attached to no particular house priest, but the bustle and activity was such that no one noticed or cared. One guard was suspicious when he saw Huy hanging about in an inner courtyard for longer than seemed necessary, but he was immediately reassured by the badge of office the former scribe showed him. The guard was a young man, and Huy wondered drily whether it was not just the badge, but the fact that it was worn by a thickset thirty-five-year-old with the muscles of a riverman. It was not the first time that he’d had to thank his unprepossessing but tough appearance, that went with neither his profession nor his nature.

The palace itself was an intricate warren of rooms and interconnected buildings, and the day was well advanced before Huy was able to find his way to the quarters occupied by the huntsmen. In his search for them he had noticed a heavy guard on the audience chamber, where the king’s body still lay, packed in fresh dampened linen which was replaced hourly, awaiting the moment – soon – when it would be taken through the palace to the open-ended, narrow building that housed the royal embalmers. Here the process of preparing the king for eternity would begin, leaving a wrapped and dried husk asleep in three layers of gilded cedarwood seventy days later.

The huntsmen’s quarters were near the stables by the river on the western side of the palace, some distance from the royal buildings. There was a great cedar shed to house the animals, and beyond it a corral for the horses. Six of them moved about restlessly as he passed it. Seven low dwellings formed a rough protective crescent behind the corral, the central one of which was larger than the others. Accompanied by two of the palace guards, four men were loading a shrouded body on to a long, narrow ox-cart which stood next to the house at the northern end of the crescent. As Huy watched, they lowered it gently on to the floor of the cart and covered it with palm boughs. Then one of the men looked at the oxen, who began plodding towards a road which led away to the north-east, the direction from which Huy had come.

He was hot and footsore, for he had lost his way twice in getting here. There were two other men in sight, both stableboys by the look of them. One approached him, looking curious. Huy displayed his badge of office.

‘I’m looking for Nehesy,’ he said.

‘Who wants him?’

‘I do. I’ve come from the palace. It’s about the king’s dogs,’ said Huy.

‘Yes?’

‘They will be needed for the procession.’

‘That won’t be for two months.’

‘You don’t understand,’ replied Huy loftily. ‘Everything has to be taken into account well in advance, not scrabbled together at the last moment. And who do you think you’re talking to anyway, you oaf?’

‘Nehesy’s in the animal house,’ said the man, his hand straying to scratch a carbuncle on the back of his neck.

‘Fetch him,’ said Huy, hoping he was not overdoing his act. The man started grudgingly on his errand. ‘Wait.’

‘Yes?’

‘Who have they just taken away?’

‘Isn’t that in your book, Mr Organiser? That was Sherybin.’

‘What was the guard for?’ Huy thought back to the guard outside the audience chamber. That was less remarkable; but even so it was unusual to place a guard on a corpse.

‘You tell me.’

‘Going to the embalmers?’

The man nodded. ‘High time. He’s been in there four days.’

‘Preparations had to be made.’

‘I don’t doubt that.’ The man stood still, looking at Huy, scratching his collection of boils.

‘What are you waiting for? Get Nehesy,’ snapped Huy.

While he stood in the sun waiting, Huy rehearsed in his heart what he would say. He had planned little for he would have to get the measure of the chief huntsman, and decide whether he _was likely to be a friend or an enemy.

Wisely or not, he liked the look of the giant who came to meet him. Nehesy was a great wolf, as heavily built as Huy and about the same age, but nearly twice his size, so that he carried his weight better. He had open, generous eyes and a large nose and mouth, his big features making him seem larger than he was. At the moment he regarded Huy with curiosity mingled with irritation. Here was a man clearly unused to being summoned, and Huy could see by his expression that he had a certain opinion of indoor palace officials, particularly if they did not appear to outrank him. But how worried was he about his own future? Had not he been in charge of the fatal hunting party?

They saluted each-other formally.

‘Something about the dogs?’ said Nehesy.

‘Yes.’

‘What about them?’

‘Can we talk out of the sun?’

‘Not used to it, are you?’

‘How can you say that to a Blacklander?’

Nehesy looked taken aback, and then, to Huy’s surprise, he smiled. ‘Come on. I’m feeding them. Always like to do that myself. Anyway they know me; wouldn’t take food from anyone else.’ He turned without another word and led the way hack to the cedar shed.

Its high roof made it cool, and the wind which constantly blew from the north kept it ventilated for the animals inside. Seven dogs, lithe tan-and-white creatures with silky ears, long ^snouts and feathered tails, paced their large enclosure, running up to the wooden rail and yelping plaintively when they saw Nehesy. From a large bucket made of sycamore wood which stood on the ground near the gate of the pen, he drew several handfuls of meat already cut into generous chunks and dropped them into a trough on the other side.

‘Antelope,’ he said, it’s the cleanest meat, and it’s all I’ll give them. Now, what do you really want?’

Huy paused for a moment before replying, I’m conducting an inquiry about the accident. Just routine, for the palace records, but I couldn’t tell your man because it is confidential.’

‘Even he thought it was a bit early to be signing up the dogs for the king’s procession to the tomb,’ said Nehesy sombrely. ‘And he isn’t any brighter than a horse.’ He finished ladling meat into the trough. ‘What can I tell you that I haven’t said already?’

‘Whom did you report to?’

‘Don’t you know?’

‘Tell me again.’

Nehesy hesitated. ‘Horemheb.’

‘Why?’

Nehesy would not meet his eye. ‘You know how things are,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to get the blame for what happened.’

‘What did happen exactly?’

‘Haven’t you seen the account I gave?’

'I’m gathering information for the palace,’ said Huy. 'It’s an independent inquiry. Nothing to do with Horemheb.’

Nehesy’s eyes became more wary. 'Is it? I see… Well, I’d do anything in the world to help the queen, poor creature.’ As long as it does not cost you your neck, thought Huy, though he continued to smile. ‘Keep our meeting to yourself,’ he said, ‘and there won’t be any trouble.’

Nehesy nodded. The big man was as well aware as anyone that you did not leave it to the protector gods to watch your back.

‘We awoke just before dawn,’ he said. ‘The cook had stoked up the fire and the water was on to boil for the ful. Apart from him, I was the first one up. I noticed the king’s tent was closed; but then I saw that his chariot was gone. I felt Set’s talons round my heart then, I can tell you.’ He broke off, looking into Huy’s face. The dogs had made short work of the meat but as he lingered by their enclosure they stayed near, looking up at him with hopeful yellow eyes.

‘I ran to Sherybin’s tent and of course he had gone, too. Then the guard who’d been on duty last came up and told me that one of the trackers had arrived back in camp an hour before the others, with news of wild cattle. Sherybin had set off with him and the king soon after.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I was furious at first. The trackers should report to me, not to the charioteers. But I knew the king would have been off after any worthwhile prey. It’d been a bad hunt, and wild cattle at this time of year are almost unheard of.’ He paused, spread his hands. ‘I roused the camp. We kicked out the fire and got the chariots ready. I only left two men to guard the tents. The rest of us set off after the king.’

‘Was it light?’

‘The sun was just coming up. We went as fast as we could, but we didn’t call out to them. If they’d really found cattle we didn’t want to spoil the hunt. Then we saw the chariot ahead of us.’ Nehesy broke off, shuddering at the memory. ‘I thought, that’s my job buggered. But I feared for the king, too,’ he added quickly, catching Huy’s expression.

‘I don’t know how it could have happened, anyway,’ he continued, it was in open desert, and Sherybin’s one of the best drivers I’ve ever known. Maybe a rein snapped, or some other piece of tack broke. Must have done, because we found the horses not far away. They were panicky, but there wasn’t a mark on them. Worst of all was the chariot. It was a new one, heavier to make it more stable, but something must have happened to turn it over. Poor Sherybin… if you could have seen him. Did you hear what happened?’

‘Yes.’

The king was lying a short way off, face down. His arms we're spread out as if he was embracing Geb.’

‘How had he died?’

‘The back of the skull was smashed in.’

Huy was silent for a moment, trying to visualise the scene. But the only pictures his heart brought to him were of the wind swirling the sand into lonely, wild spirals in an empty grey void.

‘Not even the trackers could find any trace of the cattle they were supposed to be after,’ said Nehesy.

‘What about the one who’d found them in the first place? Had he come back?’

‘No one’s seen him since.’

‘How long had he been with you?’

‘I don’t know. Half a year, perhaps. But you know these country people. He probably saw the accident, got frightened, and ran off into the desert. You can live out there indefinitely if you know how. My guess is that he joined a ship bound for Punt. It’s happened before, when people get scared enough.’

‘And Sherybin?’

Nehesy thought. ‘At least a year. He was young, but he was a good charioteer. That is why I let him drive the king.’

‘They got on well?’

‘They were like brothers.’

The dogs had lost interest in their master now, and had gone to lie down around the edges of their pen. Two rested their heads on their paws. The others still kept a watchful eye, between yawns.

‘Where is the chariot now?’ asked Huy.

Nehesy looked at him in surprise. ‘Horemheb kept it.’

Huy looked at him. ‘But not the horses?’

‘No; they are back in the stables here.’

‘How did he react to your story?’

‘He was satisfied.’ Nehesy said this challengingly, as if Huy should take warning from it.

‘May I see the horses?’

Nehesy spread his hands. ‘Of course.’

They walked out of the animal house and into the bright sunlight. The steeds were quiet now, standing in the scant shade afforded by the palm trees planted for the purpose in their corral. Nehesy undid the gate and led Huy towards them. At the smell of an approaching stranger, they stamped uneasily, and one flattened its ears; but Nehesy’s presence reassured them.

‘Which did he drive?’ asked Huy.

‘These two,’ replied the huntsman, stroking the necks of a pair of sturdy animals which stood side by side. Huy, a townsman by nature and inclination, had not had much to do with horses, but the expensive and exotic beasts fascinated him. He approached them shyly, delighted by their gentleness, and the friendliness with which they responded to the touch of his hand. He looked carefully over their flanks and their trembling thighs, where on one a muscle twitched. Their tails flicked restlessly at angrily buzzing flies. There was not a mark on either horse.

Huy straightened. ‘I don’t know anything about these animals,’ he said. ‘But if the harness had snapped – if the chariot had overturned while they were still in the traces, mightn’t there have been some breaking of the skin, or at least a burn mark?’

Nehesy looked at him.

Much later Huy sat in the sun, tired, letting its heat warm him like a lizard. Immobile as one, he let his heart sort out the events of the day.

It had not all been as successful as his meeting with Nehesy. The huntsman, believing him to be performing some kind of official duty, had indicated where he could find the chariot, but not mentioned that it was impounded. From the guards . Huy learnt that this was so because there would be a judicial inquiry into the death, and on asking what the origin of the inquiry was, was not surprised to hear that it stemmed from Horemheb’s office. In itself that was not unusual, Huy told himself; but he was more determined than ever to look at the chariot.

As he had suspected, he could find no way to see either body. Both by now were in the initial stages of embalming, and he knew that they would be covered in the white natron salt which dried them, taking out the oil and water which in life fuel a man, but which in death rot him. The Medjay guard which was placed around the stable within the royal complex at the palace where the chariot was kept, and also the embalmers¹ shed, seemed heavier than Huy thought necessary, but under Horemheb the Black Land had become a place where the leaders’ strength made itself felt. In the scant years of the reign of Tutankhamun, the old power of the king, which was absolute, but remote and benign, like the sun, had been replaced by something unsure of itself, less godlike; a power that needed to stress its presence by shows of force, by creating an unvoiced threat to any who would question it. If Akhenaten had broken the shackles by which the gods held the people in thrall, Huy thought, he had also sacrificed their innocence. By encouraging man to think for himself, he had obliged leaders to forge more terrible chains from now on, to control their subjects. A pessimist might think that only Ay’s presence had reined in Horemheb’s great ambitions; but perhaps Ay’s own ambition had grown beyond its natural bounds as he, born a commoner, saw the Golden Chair as a closer possibility.

Huy had talked to the guards and parted from them on friendly terms, leaving the way open to another approach after his next interview with Ay. Dissatisfied as he was with the means of communication Ay had laid down between them, he awaited the arrival of the old man’s messenger with impatience. But it seemed that Ay was as eager for contact as he was, for his man arrived shortly before dusk, looking furtive, and thus drawing attention to himself, as those do who are thrust without experience into undercover activity. He was a small, sleek man of thirty, with a fat belly, soft shoulders, and a finely oiled and plaited goatee. His black eyes were mistrustful and nervous, and he constantly moistened his lower lip with his tongue.

‘Were you watching for me?’ he asked as Huy opened the door to him.

‘Yes.’

The man’s eyes became even more cautious. ‘Why?’

Huy shrugged. ‘I was expecting you.’

‘You didn’t notice anyone following me?’

‘If there was, I didn’t see him. But he wouldn’t come into the square. He would stay in the cover of one of the streets and see which house you came to from there.’ Huy was amused. The man seemed to shrink into himself.

‘Do they still follow you?’

‘Who?’

The man made a gesture of impatience. ‘The Medjays.’

‘Well, I would have thought you’d know more about that than me.’

‘I work for Ay, not Horemheb,’ replied the man, with more strength of feeling than he had meant to reveal, for seeing Huy’s expression, he moderated his tone, and added, ‘Normally my work is confined to domestic duties, you see. I am unused to this. My name is Ineny.’

‘May the Sun warm you and the River refresh you.’

The formal greeting pleased Ineny, who relaxed.

‘Do not worry,’ Huy continued, it is a long time since the Medjays lost interest in me. I have done little to attract their attention and I suspect that I am thought to be a danger to the state no longer. I imagine that Ay knows this. Of course I shall have to be discreet now.’

‘Yes.’

Do you bring a message for me?’ Huy asked, fetching bread and beer. Ineny drank deeply before replying, looking grateful.

No. Ay sent me for a report.’

How much does he expect me to have found out so soon?’ You have a certain reputation, it seems,’ said Ineny, not without edge.

There is little to tell yet, but I seek another meeting with your master.’

Ineny was doubtful. ‘I am not sure about that. He wants direct contact with you kept to a minimum. I came to you from my house, for example. He gave me a story to tell if I were stopped. That I was consulting you on a matter of my own.’

‘Well, that is quite cunning. But I still need to see him.’

‘I will have to ask. Can’t I -?’

‘No. I need to talk to him directly. Tell him that from what I have learnt it will not be possible to perform his task unless I have his close co-operation.’

Ineny looked unhappy. ‘You want me to tell him that?’

‘Yes. Do not worry, Ineny. It is my insubordination, not yours.’

‘The messenger is blamed for the news he brings.’

‘All jobs carry their risk.’

Ineny drank more red beer. ‘And you have nothing you can tell me for him now?’

‘No.’

Ineny had to be satisfied with that and left soon after. Once Ay’s messenger was out of the way, Huy departed himself, and set off through the darkening streets on the long walk to the huntsmen’s compound and the stables at the palace.

Nehesy’s heart had begun to work on the possibility that the king might not have died by accident, and he was eager to help.

‘But you must be discreet,’ Huy warned him. ‘Not a word of this to anyone. I am working on the direct orders of the queen, and if my inquiry ceased to be secret – well, I needn't tell you what the consequences would be, either for us or her. Huy hoped that sounded portentous enough to impress the countryman.

‘I want to find out what happened. I won’t do anything that’ll get in the way of that.’ Nehesy’s dignity made Huy ashamed of treating him like a hick.

They left before dawn, aiming to return soon after first light, before Nehesy would be missed, though as it was the Tenth Day – the Day of Rest – it was unlikely that the huntsman's absence would be noticed at all. The animals would not lack him, for the grooms would give them their morning feed. The dogs, as Nehesy explained with solicitude, were only fed once daily, in the afternoon.

They travelled alone, taking Nehesy’s chariot, an old one, made of acacia wood with a sycamore axle bound in bronze and bronze fittings. Nehesy harnessed a pair of horses to the shaft, and released two of the dogs, Pepi and Ypu, from the pen. They darted out with whines of pleasure at this favouritism, while their fellows rose from sleep and loped a few paces before settling down again. Nehesy rubbed their noses and caressed them under the chin.

‘Won’t they be missed?’ asked Huy.

Nehesy looked at him. ‘By the great god,’ he said, i wouldn’t have your job. What must it be like, looking over your shoulder all the time? I’ve told my wife that I’m taking out a private hunter – we’re not supposed to, but it’s my rest day, and from time to time I let my staff do the same thing – a little extra funds, and quite a few of the palace officials are good customers. And there’s something else too.’

‘Yes?’

Nehesy looked at him, his big wolf’s face opening in a generous grin, it’s not something I expect you to believe, but there are no spies here.’

Regretting it in his heart, Huy indeed did not believe him. The huntsman trundled the chariot out of the compound, the dogs scampering on ahead, looking and running back before darting ahead again, checking that they were on the course intended by their master, for though the palace owned them, they were Nehesy’s animals.

As soon as they were free of the city, they gathered speed, Nehesy showed Huy how to jam his foot under the leather strap fixed to the floor of the chariot, to give him greater stability as they flew across the firm sand, heading south. The dogs, sure of their route now, had run away out of sight.

Unused to this form of transport, Huy braced his feet and grasped the handhold at the front, trying to relax his knees at the occasional impact as the wheels found ripples shaped by the wind in the sand. He felt the breeze in his face and watched the backs of the horses’ heads as they rose and fell, manes streaming. Below them, the ground, grey in the moonlight, was a blur. They continued to rush forward at a speed which seemed to Huy to increase until they were going so fast that he could hardly draw breath. Then Nehesy hauled on the reins, clicking at the horses. They slowed immediately, turning in a broad half-circle before coming to a halt at a place where the remains of a fire were still visible.

‘This is where we camped,’ said Nehesy. ‘You can see the stones we gathered to hold down the corners of the tents.’ He pointed at a number of small cairns set at regular intervals from one another. In four larger piles at the centres of these groups of cairns the tent poles must have been placed.

‘The openings faced north?’ asked Huy.

‘They always do, to catch the wind.’

‘So no one could have watched the king ride off, and then followed him?’

‘Everyone except the king and Sherybin, and that one tracker, was here when we set off after them.’

Huy climbed down. The hard, bright moonlight threw the piles of stone into sharp relief. The chariot stood in the centre of the abandoned camp like a thing from a dream. The horses kept their heads up, alert, and the dogs appeared on the edge of the darkness, keen, eyes flashing silver, their spirits halfway back to their wild ancestors. A lizard scampered under one of the little cairns, and near Huy’s foot a small area of sand heaved and subsided as something below burrowed deeper, sensing danger.

‘Did you use this place many times?’ he asked Nehesy, his voice sounding loud and coarse in the velvet darkness, in the season, once or twice a month.’

‘And just as often recently?’

‘Less so.’

That explained the desolate atmosphere. Unless there was a ghost here. Huy looked at Nehesy but he seemed unmoved by any other presence. Nor were the animals distressed. Perhaps being in the open at night, at this time just before dawn when the legions of Set were at their most powerful, when most men died and when most men were born, when the king under the earth was preparing for his rebirth, all his power drawn into himself – perhaps that was all it was.

But the feeling did not desert Huy as he climbed back into the chariot.

‘Take me to where you found him,’ he said.

The huntsman turned the chariot again and they headed further south, at a gentler speed this time. As they rode, the sun rose over a great emptiness. Away to the east were low hills, and immediately in front of them a clump of palms showed the location of a small oasis. Otherwise there was nothing, though the horses paced their course as if they were on a road.

They continued for an hour before Nehesy came to a halt.

'It was here,’ he said.

Huy looked around. As far as he could see there was nothing to indicate that the place where they had stopped was different from any other they had passed, or which might have been to come. It crossed Huy’s heart that if a trap had been laid to shut him up, then he had walked straight into it. Had he trusted Nehesy too easily? If the years spent in his new profession had taught him nothing else, it was to trust the most open People least.

'How do you know?’ he asked, looking about him, but not descending from the chariot. Against his back, stuck into the waistband of his kilt under his cloak, he could feel the horn a t of his knife. Whether he would be able to defend himself against Nehesy he did not know.

'I left a marker.’ Nehesy leapt from the chariot and walked over to where a javelin was stuck in the ground. ‘The wind’s blown all the tracks away – it had done that by the time we got here the first time – but I wanted to be sure I’d know the place again.’

‘Had you intended to come back yourself?’

Nehesy paused. ‘I don’t know. I thought it might be useful.’

'It was,’ said Huy, climbing down himself. ‘Did anyone see you leave the javelin?’

‘I didn’t do it secretly, but there was a lot of activity. We were all in a panic. Our hearts had been taken over by the gods.’

‘Where are the king’s weapons?’

‘At the palace.’

‘Do you remember where you found the body lying?’ Nehesy walked and pointed. ‘The chariot was here. The horses stood over there. A good way: fifty or seventy paces. Sherybin was hanging over the edge of the chariot, cut by a wheel.’ He pointed again. ‘And the king lay there.’

‘I see.’ Huy walked round to the chariot they had come on, and ran his thumb along the bronze-bound rim of one of its wheels. ‘This is too thick to cut a man.’

Nehesy shook his head. ‘This machine is old. The new ones are much faster, and the wheels thinner, made of metal.’ He stamped on the sand, in the dry season, except for a thin covering, most of the desert is hard like a road here. There would be little danger of the wheels sinking in.’

‘And the king’s wound?’

‘I told you. His head was smashed in at the back.’

‘But how?’

Nehesy was exasperated. ‘I don’t understand you.’

‘What smashed it? It can’t have been a rock. There are none here.’

Nehesy looked around, his expression clearing. ‘No…’

‘Then what happened? Could he have struck it on some part of the chariot as he was thrown clear, or was he hit by a horse’s hoof?’

'It’s possible. But a horse is unlikely, because if they’d still been in the shaft, the chariot wouldn’t have capsized.’

‘And if he’d struck the chariot itself?’

‘It’s possible,’ repeated Nehesy, but he looked doubtful again.

‘Why is it unlikely? What is it?’

Nehesy shook his head. ‘He must have hit the shaft somehow – or perhaps the hub of one of the wheels.’

‘Why only that?’

‘Because the body of the chariot is made of electrum – it’s very light. If a man’s head – or a block of wood or stone -anything hard – were to hit it, it would dent and cave in.’

Huy was silent. Somehow, he had to see the chariot. But doubts were turning into certainties now.

The dogs were specks on the desert, two hundred paces away, near the low rise of a dune. They would not respond when Nehesy called them.

‘Let’s go,’ said the huntsman, if they won’t come, they’ve found something.’

They mounted the chariot and drove the short distance. As they came to a halt once more, the horses shook their heads uneasily.

There would have been more of a stink if it had not been for the drying quality of the sand. As it was, the usual sweet stench, which filled your mouth and nostrils like foul rags, driving its long fingers down your throat and into your stomach, was replaced by a strong, musky odour. The dogs had not uncovered much yet – the meat was too bad for them to eat and in any case they were well enough trained to see that this was no food for them. From beneath the sand an arm rose, the fingers crooked except the index, which pointed towards the sky- Nehesy fetched a wooden spade from the chariot, strapped there to dig out bogged wheels, and began to clear away the soft sand of the dune.

The man was a husk – skin dried, eyes gone, mouth open, the cavities, cleaner beetles were busily at work. He might ave been caught in the act of swimming, the raised arm Caching diagonally back from his shoulder. Nehesy scraped away further, while the dogs watched with detached, intelligent interest. The hair of the corpse was dark and choked with sand, a forest in which small creatures crept. It stared at them forlornly from its eyeless orbits.

There was an untidy wound in his ribcage near his heart – someone had slashed at him from horseback. In his other hand he grasped a small linen bag. Huy took it and opened it. It contained five kite.

‘A hard fee to resist,’ said Huy. ‘Your tracker?’

‘Yes. But why leave him here?’

‘There probably wasn’t time to take him with them. How would they have done it? A quick burial. It’s far enough away. No one would have expected anyone to come up here again within days – and with dogs.’

‘But why kill him?’

‘That’s another question,’ said Huy. ‘Maybe he changed his mind, decided to try to warn the king. Perhaps there was a panic. Perhaps they never intended to let him live.’

‘And why leave the money?’

‘He’d earned his fee. Take it back, and his Ka would have sent a ghost after it.’

Nehesy nodded.

They reburied the remains of the tracker, as deep as they could, and Nehesy left the wooden shovel stuck in the mound above him as a marker. Huy recited what protecting words he could remember from The Book of the Dead:

The sun was already above the distant hills. They climbed into the chariot and returned to the city.