City of the Dead

FIVE

Huy was standing in a white room with a broad balcony facing north. It gave a view over the sullen rooftops of the city and, beyond them, the fragile green strip which defined the course of the River seemed to stretch to infinity. The cool wind blew on his face.

Apart from the white, the colours in the room were gold and pale blue, and they were used sparingly, decorating the tops of the columns and a frieze of stylised leaves and boughs which ran around the walls just below the ceiling. The furniture was simple in design, but it was all of blackwood decorated with gold leaf. There were two chairs, a couch and a low table. On the table, the wine jug and beakers were of gold, and near them a silver-gilt bowl contained expensive d‘epeh fruit.

Awe mingled with amusement in Huy’s heart. He had told Nehesy that he was working for the queen – a lie of convenience to get him what he wanted; and now that lie was about to be turned into truth. The slight creature sitting at the table, a brown slip of a girl not sixteen, dressed in a plain cream robe edged with silver, her dark hair adorned with a circlet of thin gold on the front of which the uræus reared, looked at him nervously. In the course of their conversation she had let her regal dignity slip as she had relaxed, unburdening herself of fear.

‘Do you think it is a judgement upon us by the Aten?’ she asked timidly.

‘The Aten does not judge. It only exists passively, to be made use of by us. Just as a cat or a hawk has no power over us except that which exists in our hearts.’

‘But we turned from it. We changed our names.’

‘The king ceased to be the Living Image of Aten, and became the Living Image of Amun. If there are gods at all, I think they are above the tricks we play to stay alive.’

‘But if there is no principle, what is the point of existence?’

‘There has to be belief to fuel principle, or it has no point itself. And does existence need to be justified? You were – forgive me _ both too young to have made up your minds.’

‘Whatever the reason, it has cost me dear.’

‘The most important thing now is to make sure the little god inside you does not come to harm.’

‘Or goddess.’

‘Quite,’ replied Huy, pleased to see a revival of spirit.

‘You may sit down if you wish,’ said Ankhsenpaamun. She had been fortunate to inherit more of her mother’s features than her father’s, though his lips and high cheekbones had come down to her. Her eastern eyes were large and dark; mature and candid.

Huy, trembling at such informality in front of his queen, did so.

‘You wonder why I sent for you.’

‘Yes.’

‘You have friends. A former friend, Taheb. The shipowner.’

‘I remember her.’

‘I am sure you do,’ replied the queen, with the faintest hint of humour in her voice. ‘I think you were close once.’

‘Yes.’

‘I want you to find out what happened to the king. It will be difficult for me to help you; but I can pay you. Only your work must be done secretly.’

Huy was silent for a moment. He asked himself whether he could tell her that he had already been engaged on similar terms y Ay. He wondered how much deeper the water would get.

‘You have your own resources.’

She made a gesture of impatience. ‘I can trust very few people. Even when my lord was alive we were virtual prisoners here. And that is the other thing I want you to look after: my safety.’

‘Is there any reason to think you are in danger?’

She looked at him. ‘Do not play the fool to draw me out, I carry the succession in my birth-cave. I carry that which will thwart the ambitions of Horemheb and my grandfather. The only difference between them is that Ay might not kill me though he would not baulk at drowning the child.’

‘I had heard that your grandfather had other plans.’

Her mouth curved in a bitter smile. ‘To marry me? That would not save my child; he would try to get one of his own on me. But I doubt if he will dare propose marriage in the face of Horemheb. He would have to destroy the general first, and I am not sure that he has that much power.’ She paused a moment, looking inside her heart. ‘But on the other hand Horemheb has declared his ambition by marrying my aunt. The race for the succession has started.’

‘Are you a competitor?’

‘You are a clever man, Huy. But I know how hollow the feeling is when you sit on the Golden Chair. My ambition is humbler: it is to survive. One day, perhaps, Ay and Horemheb will destroy each other. Then there will be a place for my child. But the first thing is to make sure it lives to see that day.’

She looked at him again, childish uncertainty creeping behind the sophistication in her eyes. ‘I have already been too frank. But you have to start trusting somewhere.’ She paused, still hesitating, and bit her lip. ‘There is a plan. You cannot be a party to it. Even before my husband was killed his successor had been selected.’

‘Who is he?’

‘Prince Zannanzash.’

‘Of the Hittites?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’ Huy found it hard to conceal his consternation.

‘Their armies threaten us. The marriage would mean unity. ‘

‘But who would control the Black Land? Would you be pharaoh, or consort?’

‘He would be consort.’

Huy hesitated before replying. ‘How far is this plan advanced?’

‘I have sent a messenger to him. Soon he will set out for the Southern Capital.’

‘With an army?’

‘With an escort. He will come in peace. I do this for my dead husband. He wished to ensure peace in the Black Land. To block my grandfather and Horemheb.’

For how long, thought Huy, but said nothing. Instead, storing the knowledge up, and wondering who else had it, he decided on a different tack. ‘Have you seen Nezemmut since her wedding? Talked to her?’

‘No. She lived so long under my mother’s shadow that she was a woman before her sun rose. Now she has her moment of glory in the face of Ra. I am an uncomfortable reminder of her past.’

Huy, bowing first, drank wine. He sank his head on his chest. ‘I want to help you,’ he said.

‘There was a time when I could command. Now I must ask. But if a time of power came again – ’ She broke off.

‘I want to help you,’ repeated Huy, formally. ‘But I must tell you that I already have a commission in this matter.’

She looked at him, and her expression contained fear, anger, defiance and hope.

Ay has already asked me to find out what happened.’

Has he?’ Her voice gave nothing away; but it did not save from the candour of her eyes.

Huy told her what he had already found out, keeping back y those details which might injure her. He left the palace at nightfall, glad that the protagonists in the drama where he played a small role were too busy watching each other to pay much attention to him.

Meanwhile, Ineny had done his work well, and arranged an interview with Ay. The old man did not begrudge this. He struck Huy as one who would do anything without complaint even to the injury of his self-esteem, if it furthered his ambition. He reminded the scribe of those people who keep the rudder of their life-ship under a firm hand, always looking towards a distant but fixed goal. At the age of twenty they know what they wish to have achieved by fifty. They set sail, and in due time they arrive at the distant port. Huy did not know whether such people were to be envied or pitied.

‘I need to talk to the doctors who examined him.’

Ay’s expression did not change. ‘Why? Is there doubt that it was an accident?’

‘There is some.’

Now the old man looked at him keenly. ‘What doubt?’

‘I am collecting information. But I must speak to the doctors if I am to give you a case.’

‘The doctors may be Horemheb’s men.’

‘Horemheb is not so powerful that he has everybody in his pocket. He cannot yet do precisely as he pleases.’

These words gratified Ay. ‘That is true. It is as bad to overestimate as to underestimate,’ he said. Huy wondered what the old man’s assessment of him was. He knew that he was involved in what was, for him, a dangerous game; but he was in no doubt of where his loyalties lay. He did not care for Ay or Horemheb, or anyone who took it that a country was merely an accessory of their own personality, an ornament for the overweening little god within them. He would have liked to see both these jockeying men devoured by crocodiles. But in truth, he knew that one of them would soon be pharaoh.

As he left, Ineny gave him the names of the two doctors. Both were high officials at the House of Healing, though twenty years separated them. The younger was in his twenties; the older, close to fifty. Huy decided to visit the younger man first.

Merinakhte was from the south. He had the tall, lean built of a desert dweller, a sour mouth and dry, professional eyes.

He received Huy in a low, dark room on the ground floor of the House of Healing. The weather had turned humid, and Huy, who suffered badly when the atmosphere was moist, was painfully aware of how much he was sweating in the heat. He was dressed in a plain kilt and a simple, light headdress, but nevertheless he could feel the water run from under his hair down his neck, and gather round his waist, trickling down his legs.

He was equally aware of the disdain with which Merinakhte regarded him. The young doctor did his best to disguise this, though his own arrogance and self regard would not let him succeed entirely. He remained dry and cool – bloodless as a lizard. Huy had no doubt that he deliberately interviewed people in this room, where the worst effects of the heat were intensified, to put them at a disadvantage from which he did not suffer himself.

‘You come from Ay?’

‘Indirectly. His office started the inquiry I am following up.’

Merinakhte frowned. ‘But there is an official investigation into the king’s death. I have told them all I found at the examination.’

‘We are working in tandem with the official inquiry. A method of cross-checking our information,’ lied Huy, praying that the doctor would not cross-check himself. It seemed unlikely. The man had climbed too high too young to be anything other than a political appointee, and as such he would be careful not to tread on the toes of any potential master. Even if Horemheb had put him where he was, he would still not feel confident enough to defy any emissary of Ay. Huy wondered bow many people like Merinakhte there were in the Southern Capital now – little people who had climbed on to one or other of the emmer-carts of the two men now in contention for the Golden Chair. No voices, he reflected, had been raised on behalf of the unborn god-king beginning to form inside the queen. Even , e gods of the city, massive and enigmatic in their solid temples, had remained discreetly silent.

‘You were the first to see the king after his accident: asked Huy.

‘No. I only saw him after he was brought back to the city. ‘

‘How long was it since his death when you saw him?’

‘Not long at all. It was early morning still. They brought him directly here.’

‘And what was the cause of death?’

‘Surely you must know that,’ snapped Merinakhte.

‘I know what the wound was. How do you think it was caused?’ replied Huy evenly.

‘An accidental blow.’

‘He must have been hit by something sharp and solid?’

‘I don’t know what it is you want me to say, but there is no question of its being anything other than an accident, Merinakhte’s voice was still aggressive, though an element of caution had crept in.

‘Did you see the chariot?’

‘Why would that have been necessary?’

Huy paused. ‘Do you think, then, that he might have struck his head on part of the chariot, or its equipment, as he fell from it?’

‘That is obvious. Really I do not see the point of this insulting cross-questioning. My reputation is a high one. How do you think I became a deputy-governor of the House of Healing?’ Huy spread his hands, deprecatingly. ‘I merely follow orders, he said in a manner designed to be irritating.

‘Ask any of my colleagues. They will tell you the same. Merinakhte became conciliatory. ‘Ask Horaha. He conducted the examination with me.’

‘I intend to.’

‘Good.’

They glared at each other for a moment, Merinakhte still unsure. Huy could imagine the message speeding to Horemheb as soon as he had left. He wondered if the general would take any action, but felt moderately secure in his own unimportance. Merinakhte would describe him as ‘a messenger purporting to come from Ay’, or in similar terms. Horemheb would wonder at that, and get his spies to investigate further. Ay’s household would be ready to confuse them.

‘One last thing,’ said Huy.

‘Yes?’

‘Whom did you report to?’

Merinakhte allowed himself a superior smile. ‘Are you really from Ay? You seem remarkably ill informed. Do you have any written authorisation?’

‘You’re leaving it a little late to ask for that,’ retorted Huy. ‘The degree of your co-operation has been noted.’ With that, he turned on his heel, inwardly content at the insecurity he had sown.

He left the House of Healing and made his way out of the main courtyard, turning right and heading towards the little compound set among dom palms where the doctors’ houses were arranged in neat rows, separated by tidy gardens, each with its own containing wall and central fishpond. The shady streets which divided them were swept and clean, and mingled with the pleasing smell of dust and distant spices which hung over most of the city apart from the dirty, cluttered harbour quarter, there was the scent of safflowers.

The building he was looking for stood on its own at the end of a row, on a corner where two streets met. He knocked at a door painted a dull red, set into a white, plastered wall, over whose top oleander clambered, scattering it untidily with pale pink flowers.

The door was opened to him by a house servant who ushered him into a large garden and asked him to wait. The house, raised on a platform against possible flood from the River, which ran close by, was tall and white, and partly hidden behind the cypress tress which had been planted along the edge of the rectangular pool. Two gardeners were busy, one watering a large kitchen garden, the other, half hidden, thinning out an enormous bank of blue and yellow flowers which rose against e inner side of the street wall. The lattice windows of the main reception room were set high in the house, and above them rose the two vents to catch the north wind. It was a bigger place than most of the others in the compound. Huy noticed that the interior doorposts were set with lapis lazuli.

A pair of ro geese waddled over curiously from the direction of the pool to look at him. As they did so, their owner appeared in the doorway of the house.

Horaha came slowly across the garden to meet him, leaning heavily on a blackwood stick. He wore no headdress, and his bald head was bronzed by the sun. He was dressed in a calf-length pleated kilt and a short upper robe with half-sleeves, from which wiry arms projected, ending in hands that seemed too big for them, with long, agile fingers. A high wooden sole had been attached to the sandal he wore on the foot of his bad leg, which protruded, withered and thin, from below the hem of the kilt. Huy, having noticed it, quickly withdrew his gaze and did not look in its direction again. He had always been careful in matters of everyday courtesy.

The elderly doctor was not alone. Walking with him was a girl with the same intelligent face, but more delicate, subtle features. She had a clear, high forehead, framed by a mass of black hair dressed in a complex braid. Her large chestnut eyes were set under slender dark-brown eyebrows, and her fine nose above a generous mouth, curved in a smile which was partly defensive. Her chin was firm without being obstinate. She was tall – taller than Huy – and she had broad shoulders and full breasts, though her legs were long and slim, and her hips almost boyish.

Wooden folding chairs had been brought out from the shade of the house and set under a tamarisk tree, where house servants brought Dakhla wine, honey and figs. Horaha’s manner was hospitable and charming; but he could not disguise an inner lack of ease.

‘How private do you wish this interview to be?’ he asked Huy-‘I have not introduced you to my daughter. She is Senseneb, and since my wife’s death she has been my right hand – more. I have no secrets from her, and if anything she knows more about my affairs than I do myself.’

He was talking too much, too fulsomely; out of nervousness, Huy supposed. He smiled at the girl, but she did not relax her own expression. She would remain defensive until she knew whether or not he intended harm to her father.

‘Are you a doctor too?’ he asked her politely.

‘My father has taught me,’ she replied, non-committally.

‘There is no reason for you not to stay, if you wish,’ said Huy, and was pleased to see her expression unstiffen.

As their conversation progressed, Huy was happy to find that there was very little of the restraint that had surrounded his talk with Merinakhte. Or rather, the restraint was of a different kind. The unease he had been aware of in Horaha did not diminish, and though Senseneb said little she would occasionally dart her father a warning glance. To try to relax them more, Huy played the part of the bland bureaucrat, making routine enquiries for the record, given that the death in question concerned the most important person in the country. He affected a lack of interest in the question of the pharaoh’s successor, taking the line that whoever ruled, people like him would always be needed. This act went some way towards having its desired effect, though despite himself Huy was sorry to see that Senseneb was beginning to look at him with mild contempt. A large and indolent cat, one of two that were prowling around the table, leapt on to his lap and settled there, purring.

He wondered how old Senseneb might be. Not a girl any more, she might have been at the end of her third decade. Had she been married? Was she still? Did she have children? Her face told him nothing, and Huy fought his curiosity. It was not relevant.

They had come to the cause of the king’s death. Horaha exchanged more frequent glances with his daughter, and even their posture began to betray the anxiety they felt. Huy could not ignore this.

‘You tell me you believe Nebkheprure Tutankhamun died accidentally,’ he said. ‘But your faces and your bodies tell me a different story.’ He looked from one to the other, but neither would meet his eye. ‘Do not be concerned that this conversation will be repeated farther than is necessary. It is the truth that we want.’ Huy chose his words carefully, if you believe that the king died by someone’s hand, do you not think that his Ka will not see you as accomplices if you do not speak of it?’

‘Perhaps the Black Land has reached a point where the living great are more to be feared than the dead,’ said Senseneb finally. Her father bowed his head. Huy realised that he had played his petty official role too well. They would never trust him with open hearts. But Senseneb had already said too much.

‘What do you mean?’ he asked her quickly.

Her eyes blazed at last. ‘I mean that there is little room for truth.’

Horaha raised his hand too late to stop her speaking. Now he let it fall.

‘You had better tell me what you think,’ Huy said to him, but without threat in his voice. He wished he could be honest with this man, and tell him that in truth he represented the interests of the queen. He knew without being told that they thought the king’s death was no accident, and had sound reasons for that belief; but even if he were frank with them, would they believe him?

Huy told himself to be patient. Perhaps he could come back, once he had gathered more information, and lay it before them-Then they might exchange their knowledge for his, and he would have the foundations of a badly-needed alliance with which to help the queen. But for the moment he could not know, or risk too much intimacy. It was frustrating that a lack of trust kept him from knowing exactly what conclusions Horaha had drawn from his examination of the king; but perhaps it was as important to know that they existed. And unless they were past masters, both Horaha and his daughter were amateurs in the aft of subterfuge. If he had not been on their side, they had already given him enough to destroy them.

‘My father has told you all he can,’ said Senseneb as she walked him to the gate. ‘There is no doubt that the king’s death was a tragic accident.’

‘It leaves the queen badly exposed,’ said Huy, deliberately dropping his guard at this unexpected opportunity.

‘But that is simply the will of the gods,’ she replied, looking at him. ‘Wouldn’t you say?’

‘If Tutankhamun’s death was an accident, yes.’

She looked at him more closely. ‘Do you think otherwise?’ Huy did not answer. Senseneb’s expression changed, and he knew that she was wondering whether her first assessment of him was correct. He left her with the question in her mind, still unsure if the seeds of an alliance were here. His main concern was that he had impulsively laid himself open to betrayal. But he could not see Senseneb or her father as servants of Horemheb. And he hoped that they would not be left with the impression that he was.

It was late when he left the beautiful house in the doctors’ compound. What a perfect place it seemed, and yet how sad and confused were its occupants. Huy, thrust out of the quiet and secure life he had trained for, which was all he had ever wanted, had come with time to know that such a life does not exist. In such a house, in such a garden, he might still have believed it possible. But he knew that in the end the only quiet place, the only cool pool beside which he could sit in total security, was the one buried at the centre of his heart.

Unfortunately walls were not enough to shut out life.

He made his way under the lengthening shadows of the sycamores and acacias down through the town towards the harbour quarter, but he did not go home immediately. Instead, he headed for the string of eating houses which ran along the quay where the broad-bottomed bullion barges were tied up. A scattered light from their frontage was thrown against the implacable darkness which was gathering over the River. Very faintly, through the haze, the fires of the workmen engaged in their never-ending task of tomb excavation glowed on the West Bank.

Huy wondered how work on Tutankhamun’s hastily-prepared grave was progressing. He had heard that it was nearing completion. The burial would take place as soon as the body was ready, Ay’s messenger Ineny had told him. All the arrangements had been taken over by Ay, but no agreement had yet been reached over who should perform the rite of Opening the Mouth.

The smell of linseed oil, bak, and spices reached his nostrils as he approached the untidy line of buildings open at the front, with small tables sprawling out onto the quayside as far as the lantern light would reach.

A number of diners sat at each establishment. They were mainly rivermen, and the noise of the conversation and the mingled smells of cooking, the scurrying of the serving men and girls, and the steam and smoke from the fires and the clay ovens at the rear, created a chaotic and amiable inferno in which it was easy to hide. Threading his way through tables Huy found Nehesy seated near the back of the third eating house, an untouched bowl of duck and lentils in front of him, his hands clasping and unclasping impatiently. He half rose as Huy quickly sat next to him, placing a hand on his arm.

‘No one saw you arrive?’ asked Huy.

‘They don’t know my face down here, or I’d have been mobbed. Everyone’s talking about the king’s death. I overheard more than one bargemaster say he wasn’t continuing on to the Northern Capital until he was sure who the next pharaoh was going to be.’

‘It won’t make any difference to them.’ it won’t make any difference to most of us; but we like to think it’s important that we know.’

Huy smiled. ‘Maybe we’re being optimistic to think that it won’t make any difference. Did you see the chariot?’

Nehesy glanced around quickly. ‘Yes. The guards weren't too happy about it at first, but as soon as I told them who I was, they let me in. Especially as I happened to take along a couple of antelope hides, which they were very happy to accept.’

‘What did you tell them?’

‘That I needed to check the equipment – the sand shovel, what weapons were left – for my own report.’

‘And?’

Nehesy leant forward. He thrust his great head forward, placed his elbows on the table, and spread his hands wide. ‘In the confusion when we found the king and brought him back, I didn’t take in much detail, but I can tell you this now: the chariot is completely undamaged. There isn’t a dent on its shell. I don’t know if they’ve cleaned it – it doesn’t look like it because there’s still plenty of sand caught in the axle and around the wheel spokes – but there isn’t a trace of any blood, or hair, or skin. I saw the wound on the king’s skull. If he had struck it on the chariot there would be signs of where he got the blow.’

‘You’re sure it would have dented the shell?’

Nehesy spread his hands wider in impatience. ‘Look, those electrum chariots are feather light. The metal would bend if you blew on it. There is something else too.’

‘Yes?’

‘The harness has disappeared. All of it. Bridle, bit, reins, girth – all gone. The guards knew nothing of it, and it wasn’t returned to the stables.’

Huy paused for a moment, thinking. Then he said, ‘What will happen to the chariot?’

‘The story is that it will be buried with the king. The new officer in charge of the official inquiry has inspected it.’

Then there is nothing we can do,’ said Huy.

You can tell Ay what we’ve found out. What did the doctors say?’

Huy told him.

Then there is enough to go on. With that information, if Ay cannot block Horemheb…‘ Nehesy broke off in exasperation, as Huy continued to hesitate.

‘We can’t assume Horemheb is responsible for the king’s death,’ Huy said, finally. ‘He’s not the only one who stands likely to profit by it, and if he has no other virtue, he has shown himself to have patience.’

‘Consider this then,’ said Nehesy. ‘The man in charge of the inquiry is Kenamun. He is the new chief of police.’

Huy drew in his breath. He thought of the unsettled score he had with the former priest-administrator. In those days Kenamun had been Horemheb’s man; there was no reason to think that things had changed.

He did not notice a boatman at the next table rise and leave, his plate of food untouched.