by Gill, Anton
‘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 aloo
f. 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 wa
ter 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?’