by Anton Gill
TEN
Offering him wine, Amotju welcomed his friend as if he had returned from a long journey — which, Huy thought, he had, in a way, though he decided to say nothing about his experience. Instead, he told Amotju about his talk with Mutnefert, and lied about how he had spent his time since.
‘Have you heard from Taheb?’ asked Huy.
Amotju looked at him shiftily. ‘Yes.’
‘What is her news?’
‘She has only sent two letters by courier. She asks after the children, tells me of the preparations there for the king’s departure. There have been final receptions, a state banquet…’
‘What will you do when she returns?’
Amotju stuck his jaw out a fraction. ‘I will tell her that I am going to divorce her. There will be no difficulty. There is an agreed settlement.’
‘And then?’
‘Huy, you are an old friend, but —’
‘Of course; I am sorry. It is none of my business.’
‘In any case, you will find out soon enough. But you should know that the only obstacle to my happiness and my ambition is the high priest. What evidence have you against Rekhmire that I can use?’
Huy waited for a moment before replying. ‘I do not think there is anything for you to use against Rekhmire. I do not know how he funds himself, but there is no reason to think that he is helped other than by the temple.’
‘Then how is it funded?’
‘You know as well as I do that when Akhenaten diverted all temple income to himself, and to the Aten, many of the goods were withheld from him. Look at how fast the old religion has regained lost ground. There is no mystery there.’
Amotju spread his hands in impatience. ‘Then are you saying that he has nothing to do with the tomb robberies, and nothing to do with the piracy?’
‘I am sure he has not. He may be guilty of other crimes, but not of those.’
‘How do you know?’
‘There is no positive proof; but he has had me in his power more than once, and it would have been the simplest matter to have me removed.’ Huy mentioned that he knew a man had been set by Rekhmire to keep a watch on his house; but he did not mention that Aset had discovered him and followed him to the palace.
‘Then how will I destroy him?’
Huy was astonished at the rage in his friend’s voice. ‘What for?’
‘Someone has been waging war against me!’
‘It is not Rekhmire, however much he may rejoice at your misfortune. You know you aren’t the only prominent citizen to have his family grave plundered, or the only man with business on the River to be a victim of pirates. You want to cast Rekhmire as the villain because you need a rival removed. Time is running out, too. I believe you wanted this business concluded before Tutankhamun arrives. Now, he will be here within days. Worse, Rekhmire has succeeded in completing the palace — at least, the royal apartments. That will do him no harm in the new king’s eyes.’
‘Or Horemheb’s. What is the difference?’
Huy said nothing for a moment. Then he asked: ‘Why do you want this power?’
‘Perhaps to prevent it falling into the hands of men like Rekhmire.’
Why do you think you are better than he is, thought Huy, but did not ask the question.
‘Mutnefert told me that you have placed a man in Rekhmire’s household.’
Amotju pursed his lips. ‘She should not have told you, but yes, it is true.’
‘Why now?’
Amotju looked at him directly: ‘I was afraid you could not finish the job.’
‘You ordered me to leave the priest alone. Or have you forgotten your experience in the other world?’
‘I have talked with friends since.’
‘With which friends?’
‘With Mutnefert.’
‘Did she persuade you to place the spy?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what did she say about Rekhmire’s demons?’ Amotju lowered his head. ‘That if they were demons, and obedient to him, then I would remove the danger by removing him.’
‘Wouldn’t you fear the anger of his spirit?’
‘Once in the spirit world, his earthly ambitions would be gone. I would only have to go to his tomb, and propitiate his Ka with gifts.’
Huy ran a hand briefly across his forehead. How quickly people accommodated their beliefs to their convenience. ‘What has your spy had to report?’
‘I do not think —’
‘I am supposed to be working for Mutnefert. Do you want me to help her or not?’
‘He has nothing to report; but he has only been in place a matter of days, and whatever else he may have to do, it is clear that for the moment, at least, Rekhmire will be fully involved in the final preparations for the pharaoh’s arrival. Although yesterday Rekhmire announced that he was crossing to the Valley.’
‘Why?’
‘My man didn’t say: I think it must be to inspect his tomb. My man was able to persuade him to take him along as his body-servant.’
‘How did he manage that?’
Amotju smiled. ‘Rekhmire’s sexual tastes are wide. Amen-mose is an attractive man and knows his job.’
Huy left soon after, refusing to stay for wine or the midday food. Despite the fact that the sun was now high in the sky, he made his way down to the quay where the ferries were moored, and managed to catch the last one before the afternoon rest to cross over to the opposite bank. Disembarking there, he hurried across the hot flagstones and past the small, low buildings which huddled around the dock. Ahead of him, like a curtain cutting off the narrow plain, reared the cliffs into which the tombs of the mighty were cut. Wrapping a linen scarf loosely around his head to protect it from the sun, he turned north-west and made his way towards the upper corner of the valley.
On his way, he passed the entrance to Rekhmire’s new tomb. The imposing gateway consisted of a richly decorated lintel and supports, carved in relief into the rock face, which had been flattened and smoothed for some distance above and to either side of it. Outside, under an awning balanced precariously between four twisted wooden poles, a dozen artisans sat, lunching on flat brown loaves, sweet onions and beer. He walked up and greeted them. In his headscarf and worn kilt, he looked like one of them. He told them he was working on the refurbishment of the principal temple of Amun at Karnak, a building whose bulk could be seen easily from here, rising on the east bank. He refused an offer to join them in eating, but accepted a beaker of red beer and water, and squatted down to join them. He knew that they would be on their guard against any stranger merely arriving and asking precise question about the layout and progress of the tomb they were working on, so he simply dropped a couple of discreet enquiries into the general flow of their chat, while parrying their queries about work on the temple. He knew enough about building from his days as a clerk at the City of the Horizon, during the frenetic period of its construction, to be able to give intelligent answers, and this allayed their suspicion. In return, he was able to discover that work on this tomb had only been in progress for two years.
‘The high priest is forty years old. He expects to live for another thirty,’ said the foreman, as one imparting important confidential information. ‘So he wants the accent here to be on quality. He doesn’t mind how long it takes.’
‘Who will look after it when he dies?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, he has no children, has he?’
‘He has time to beget some yet.’
‘He’ll be lucky,’ said one of the artisans. The foreman turned on them, but no one met his eye.
‘Have you begun to paint?’ asked Huy, referring to the intricate decoration, depicting scenes from the high priest’s life, as well as illustrations of the world to come, and things and people he would need for his life there, which would be placed on the inner walls of the tomb.
‘No,’ said the foreman. ‘We haven’t finished excavating the transverse hall for the chapel, o
r the corridor beyond, yet. Then there’s the shaft to the burial chamber to be dug; but we’ll do that when the artists are working on the decorations for the chapel.’
‘Does Rekhmire visit often, to look at progress?’
‘When he can; he’s a busy man.’
‘Especially now.’
‘Yes!’
‘So he hasn’t been recently?’
‘No.’
‘Not yesterday or today?’
‘No,’ repeated the foreman, looking at Huy obliquely.
But by now, Huy had sufficiently gained their confidence to be allowed to look inside the tomb himself. It was blissfully cool and dark, and here and there shafts had been sunk from the rocky cliff above to allow light and ventilation to those working at the far end of the tomb, which already ran seventy paces deep into the rock. The floor was swept and smooth, and a glance or two told Huy all that he wanted to find out from his visit.
‘I bet he has it well guarded,’ he said to the proud foreman as they made their way back towards the sunlight.
‘Oh yes. Mind you, someone’s here most of the time, working. The first shift starts just after dawn, and then after the midday sleep we work on until just before the light fades.’
‘We post twenty soldiers at the temple at night,’ boasted Huy, hoping that his approximate guess would take the foreman in.
‘Well, that’s a state project,’ replied the foreman, rising to the bait. ‘But we have four men on; and the amount Rekhmire pays them, I don’t reckon they’d be bribable, either.’
‘So there wouldn’t be much left over to pay for guards for his old tomb?’
The foreman considered. ‘Shouldn’t think so. Didn’t he sell the site on?’
‘No.’
‘What’s your interest, anyway?’
‘He’s a man whose star is rising.’
The foreman laughed, knowingly. There were plenty of people in the Southern Capital just now, running around seeking the patronage of those who had so recently been returned to favour.
The sun had passed its zenith by the time Huy hastened on, grateful for the relief that the cooling day brought. He passed gangs of workers returning to work, and the mid-afternoon silence of the Valley was now broken again by the muted but ubiquitous sound of hammers and chisels on rock, as armies of men laboured to excavate the final resting places of the elite. As he walked, Huy’s thoughts turned once again, briefly, to his own neglected tomb. Where would he rest in the end, he wondered, now that his world had been turned on its head? If he were to die today, he would be put into one of the mass tombs, with a couple of earthenware jars of barley to keep him company in the afterlife, if he were lucky. He wondered why his countrymen clung to this belief in an afterlife, when within a generation their descendants forgot about them, ignoring the curses inscribed on the tomb gates which were to be visited on those who neglected to feed and care for the Ka of the deceased resting within.
But no doubts assailed Rekhmire. The high priest of the cult of the god of the underworld needed to assert both his belief and his status.
Huy was passing more modest tombs now — those belonging to officials of middle rank, and businessmen and women whose wealth did not permit them to excavate within the precise centre of the Valley. It was here that twenty years earlier, Rekhmire had begun his first tomb — even at the outset of his career, he was taking no chances with the afterlife.
The entrance of Rekhmire’s original vault was set some way from any new building and it was considerably smaller than the new excavation his exalted position demanded, but Huy managed to find it without difficulty, and established that he was correct by deciphering the already wind-worn cartouche containing the priest’s name at the side of the gate.
It seemed unlikely that anyone came here to stand guard. It looked as though no one at all had been here for several years. The entrance was partially blocked by rubble, which had either fallen, or was the result of dumping from other excavations. The rubble was overgrown with thistles and sparse, grey-green weeds, among which a large lizard darted, disturbed by Huy’s approach. Huy climbed to the top of the pile and peered into the black hole which was all that remained of the entrance to the tomb; but it was too dark to see anything. Retracing his steps, he began to walk carefully around the great ship of a rock into which the tomb was carved, and which raised its humped back, overgrown with more weeds and thistle, out of the surrounding area.
He had reached its westernmost point and was about to start following its northern slope when he noticed the opening. It was no more than a slit, but it was a pace wide at its broadest point, and around it the ground was worn smooth and weed-free. By looking carefully, Huy could even discern a path which led directly up to it from the arid ground below, though some attempt had been made to scrape the undergrowth back over it. He checked his pouch for the firestriker and the oil-lamp he had brought with him, and, after a last look around, lowered himself through the hole and dropped inside the tomb.
It was lighter than he had expected, and as his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, he saw that this was because three or four of the ventilation shafts cut by the original workmen had not been filled, and they allowed pillars of sunlight through. He was standing in what must have been designed as the inner chamber, for at the far end were the beginnings of the digging work for the shaft which would have plunged vertically down to a small room in which the sarcophagus would have been placed. Directly above it, on a plinth, stood a statue. The pose was formal, but the head was startlingly lifelike, and although the body had been relieved of its bunched shoulders and club foot, the heavy face that leered down, though twenty years younger, was clearly Rekhmire’s.
Underfoot, the ground was rough and uneven. Stooping, Huy could see that jagged stones protruded from the red sand. He felt one, and quickly withdrew his hand. It was a sharpened flint. Clearly at some stage, workmen had dumped their worn-out tools in this abandoned grave. But the stones had been disturbed. Grooves ran along the surface of the rough ground. Someone had been dragged across it; but how recently?
He wondered when the work had been broken off. Five years ago? Ten? More likely earlier than later, for tomb-building here had come to a virtual standstill after the transfer of the court northwards. But even if no work had been done for a long time, there had been people here within the last days. There were the remains of two fires, and in one corner Huy discovered a handful of new copper nails.
Lighting the lamp, he moved carefully forwards through the linking corridor into the mortuary chapel, which would have originally led to a vestibule beyond which the outside world lay. Here, Rekhmire’s Ka would have come to gather up the food offerings left for it. Although the tomb had never been in use, Huy shuddered involuntarily.
The chapel was much brighter, illuminated through the hole which represented the remains of the blocked-up entrance in the vestibule immediately beyond. The painters had started work here before the tomb was abandoned, for Huy saw that he was surrounded by rows of shadowy figures performing the day-to-day tasks which Rekhmire would expect to have done for him still when he reached the Fields of Aarru. He came across one scene which made him grow cold. It depicted Rekhmire on his journey through the twelve halls of darkness, encountering and quelling the demons that dwelt there, finally emerging into the Hall of the Two Truths, where he stood respectfully as Anubis weighed his heart against the Feather of
Maat, and as Thoth-the-Ibis-Headed recorded the finding in the presence of the Forty-Two Judges. Beyond Thoth, the beast Ammit crouched, ready to devour the hearts of the unjust.
There were other things here, which did not belong to the tomb. A pile of discarded shabti figures — magic models of the servants who would care for a dead man in the next world. Huy picked one up and examined it; it was of river-horse ivory, overlaid in gold and set with carnelian, turquoise and lapis lazuli. Beyond the figures, all of which, Huy noted, were of the same high quality, lay a small quantity of loose gold nug
gets. The gold was still in a pretty impure state, and the nuggets were of the kind formed at the mines in the far south, where the molten gold was dropped into water to form small, irregular lumps for ease of transport, when it was not desirable or possible to make ingots in rough moulds dug in the sand.
If the shabti figures were loot from a grave robbery, the gold was not. Huy knew where the gold had come from.
But there was more. Four broad leather slings hung from the wall, where a nail had been carelessly driven into the soft stone through a painting of Horus-the-Hawk-Headed. The leather was coarse and hard, and stained with dark patches where some liquid or other had soaked into it. The patches were new. Huy held one of the slings to his nose. There was the smell of leather and the smell of blood. Next to the slings hung something else. A crocodile mask of the same kind that had been fixed over the face of Ani when Huy had discovered his body.
Panicking at the memory this sight triggered, and at the realisation of where he was, Huy backed away, and hurried down the corridor towards the inner chamber, cursing himself for having left his line of retreat unsecured. In his haste, he stumbled, and fell on the floor, cutting his hands on the sharp flints. Scrambling to his feet, he reached up and hauled himself out through the slit into the blue twilight. His instinct then was to run in the direction of the jetties, but instead he made himself walk in as straight a line as was possible from the tomb towards the riverbank.
It was becoming too dark to see clearly, but there were recently overturned stones and the broken stems of plants to guide him. In any case, the shortest route would be the obvious one to take if you were in a hurry and carrying, or dragging, a heavy weight. Huy had no idea how fresh the blood was, but he knew that if he could still smell it above the heavy odour of the ox-leather slings it could not have been shed more than twenty-four hours earlier. Neither he nor Amotju had bled copiously, except from the hands when they had been dragged across the flint floor. The slings from which they would have been suspended to give them the impression of weightlessness when they were drugged would not have been stained with their blood.