by Anton Gill
‘But we are winning.’
‘Yes, we are winning.’
Huy could not resist one more question. ‘Do you have word from Horemheb?’
Kamose looked at him quickly, but Huy had kept his voice innocent. ‘He sends reports to the garrison commander.’
‘Userhet?’
Kamose looked faintly surprised at the abruptness of the question, which Huy regretted. Was it the air here that made him irritable – or the deflection from what he had come here to do? In truth he was irritated with himself, for having so easily allowed himself to become diverted from his search for his son – which, after all, he had not even begun. But he would need to talk to the commander on his own account.
‘That is his name.’
‘I wonder if he knew Heby.’
Kamose did not know how to answer. Surely Huy must know that to the garrison commander Heby would just have been one of many young soldiers in transit for the war. If Userhet knew the name at all, it would be as a possible deserter. But Kamose gave voice to none of these thoughts.
‘I will think on what you have said,’ he told Huy. ‘And I am grateful for your help.’
Huy started to leave, but at the door a further thought struck him. ‘Have there been any other attacks?’
‘No.’
‘I would call off the guards,’ said Huy. ‘It does not look as if the killers are after anyone else.’
‘The Khabiri could have sent a commando to destroy the leading men of the city.’
Huy looked at him. ‘The Khabiri are not seamen. And even if they were, where would they sleep, how would they eat? This is a small city. Where is there for them to hide?’
‘I will call the Council together.’
‘You would do well not to alarm the people.’
‘Do not teach me my work.’
Huy lowered his eyes. He had no intention of starting off badly here, but it seemed that he was doing his best to do so. Kamose, too, seemed embarrassed. There was an edgy silence between the two men.
‘We will talk further of this,’ said Kamose. ‘But now you must go to the mother of your son. Cheruiri will accompany you.’
‘I do not need him.’
Kamose looked at him. ‘My intention was only that he should show you the way.’
Huy inclined his head. He would need friends here, not enemies. He had better not let his suspicious nature make things worse for him than they need be.
*
There was a litter waiting for them, but Huy suggested that they go on foot, so that he could begin to get to know the town. Cheruiri hesitated for a breath’s space, then seemed to welcome the idea.
‘It would be good to dispense with our escort as well,’ said Huy, looking at the two fifteen-year-old boys in military kilts carrying short spears who were standing by the litter.
Cheruiri looked doubtful again.
‘I don’t think either of us is important enough to merit a Khabiri attack, do you?’ said Huy.
They left by a side gate in the garden wall, nearer to the first streets of the city that climbed the small hill to the governor’s mansion than the main gate, which looked out over the harbour.
‘We will have to cross the town. Aahmes and Menuhotep live on the slope of the hill beyond the market square.’
It was odd for the scribe to hear the name of his former wife mentioned so naturally with that of her new husband by a man who knew nothing of her previous life with Huy. He realised that he was more nervous about seeing her again that he had pretended to himself. He found himself wishing that he had decided to take Psaro with him: Psaro was familiar, a connection with his home and his present life. But it was too late now.
The first thing he noticed as they walked was that the streets were not dusty here. The air was dry and keen, and blissfully cool, though the sun beat down upon them with the same remorseless harshness as at the Southern Capital. The houses stood neatly behind their mud walls, but from what he could glimpse of gardens through half-open gates their vegetation seemed sparser. Many of the mud-brick walls were in a state of decay, and many attempts at renovation seemed already to be crumbling. Tough, grey-green weeds grew in the baked earth of the street floor, with leaves like spears. There were few people about. Perhaps all daytime activity here was centred on the harbour. Huy noticed nets hanging on walls, some torn. Occasionally he would glimpse a woman or a house-servant cooking, or spinning. On the roofs above, there would sometimes be children playing.
‘The salt in the air makes things rot,’ said Cheruiri.
‘People too?’
‘No. The healers think it is good for them.’
Huy looked about him. ‘I expect it takes time.’
‘Have you seen the Great Green before?’
‘No.’
‘Nor had I, when I came here. It takes time to get used to it, for it affects the seasons and the heart; but now I am used to it.’ Cheruiri did not sound happy.
‘I will keep counsel.’
Cheruiri smiled. ‘We must take you out in a ship.’
Huy smiled back, but inwardly he prayed that such a thing would not be necessary. Yet why not? It was good to try new things. Had he lost that kind of curiosity? It would be a pity if he had. As they walked, he had the sea on his right for some of the time, making a brief appearance at the ends of streets where they opened out to a view of it every now and then. It was more restless, less patient, than the River. Beyond it lay countries of which he had scarcely dreamed, which few Black Landers had seen. One day, perhaps, he would cross it. But not now. Not yet.
‘Kamose is tense,’ said Cheruiri after they had walked further.
‘Yes.’
‘He is a good man, Huy. He walks in silence. But his wife is dead and not long ago his son was killed in the war. They brought him the news but the body is buried in the lands to the east of the Great Green. He does not know if the boy had a proper burial. As a governor’s son, I am sure he got one – but a father worries. As you must.’
‘I do. How old was his boy?’
‘Seventeen.’
‘That is my son’s age.’
‘It is no answer to a problem, when we have to throw away the lives of young men to try to solve it.’
‘Has Kamose any other family?’
‘There is an older daughter.’
‘I see.’
‘Let us help each other solve our problems,’ said Cheruiri.
‘It is my most earnest wish.’
They walked on in silence. Huy looked sidelong at his companion. Cheruiri’s plumpness belied his age, smoothing out lines that would have been apparent in a slimmer man.
‘Do you have any thoughts about the murder of Ipur?’
Cheruiri looked at him. ‘It was unfortunate. It is a mystery.’
‘But he had enemies?’
‘We all have enemies. Whether he had any who thought him worth killing is another question.’
They had arrived at a broad double gate of cedar-wood: an unmistakable mark of great wealth. Yet Huy noticed that the surface of the high doors was pitted and that the square columns which supported them were in a state of disrepair. The walls that led off on either side of the columns were crowded with bright purple flowers in great profusion that grew on the ends of long twisting and rambling stems. They were pretty, but they suggested an overgrown garden beyond. Huy looked at Cheruiri questioningly, hoping that his expression did not betray his anxiety; but the courtier’s face was a mask.
‘We have arrived.’
He raised the stick he was carrying and was about to knock when Huy stopped him.
‘I need a moment.’
Cheruiri lowered the stick and Huy closed his eyes, breathing deeply and calmly. He said his name to himself, once, clenching and unclenching his hands. Then he was ready.
‘Do you want me to stay?’ asked Cheruiri.
‘No. I will find my way back. I can see the mansion from here.’
One half of th
e gate was pulled open enough to reveal a small man in the kilt and tunic of a house-servant who looked at them with dull eyes.
‘This is the Chief Scribe Huy. Your household expects him,’ said Cheruiri with a flourish. The man inclined his head and opened the door wider, though it appeared to cost him an effort to do so. Cheruiri bowed to Huy and stepped back. Huy walked past the servant into the garden.
He wished he had asked Cheruiri outright whether there had been a change in Menuhotep’s fortunes – or rather, what might have caused it, for that it had happened seemed to be evident. Plants, once cultivated, tangled about in confusion, some choking trees. other trees had died and stood, gaunt and dry, turning yellow in the baking air, for the walls were high, and the wind could stir nothing here. The pool still had water in it, but the water was murky and green. The house looked dark and closed. There should be three children here, but there was no evidence of them – or indeed of anyone else. Human and animal life appeared to have ceased here, but the servant shuffled ahead steadily, clearly with a destination in view.
Huy followed the man across the terrace, where at a table he could see the remains of a meal being cleared by a middle-aged woman in a long pleated dress. She did not look up as he passed. Here, some effort had been made to keep up appearances. What plants there were were pruned and tidy, and the terrace itself was swept. Its furniture was cracked and some chairs were broken.
The archway into the house gaped like the dark rectangular mouth of a cave. Inside, it was mercifully cool. Huy paused on the threshold to accustom his eyes to the dimness. He was facing a large room, with a wooden floor. There was a fresh, attractive smell. On the other side of the room, low windows and archways gave onto a courtyard, bleached by sunlight, in which Huy could see statues of the house-gods – Nekhbet and Isis – and a pool. From somewhere came the sound of water splashing and once – he thought – the sound of a child’s laughter.
The room he was in was spacious but contained little furniture. There were two low dark-coloured benches facing each other across a table of the same material. There was nothing against the walls, which were decorated by a high frieze which Huy could not make out – something to do with fish, he thought, but fish of a shape and size that he had never seen before.
He realised that he was alone in the room. The servant must have vanished through some unseen doorway. Huy stood uncertain. He had not been asked to remain here, but it was impossible to proceed. He listened to the sounds of the house intently, but apart from the noise of the water there was nothing he could fix on.
Then there was a rustle of clothing and he turned to see his former wife coming towards him.
She was taller than he remembered; but she had always been taller than him. She wore a simple dress edged with green and blue, and at her neck a menat collar. Her wig was long, the two side-pieces covering the front of her shoulders and hanging down to her breast. The braiding was ornate. On her wrists and ankles she wore plain gold bracelets and anklets, and large stud earrings of the same metal hid her ears.
Her skin was browner than he remembered, and the features of her face coarser – a contour of flesh dipped behind the point of her chin, and her cheeks were broad and flat. She had coloured her palms and fingernails with henna, and he guessed that the soles of her feet had been decorated in the same way. Her eyes were carefully made up and outlined in black, but as she came closer he could see the network of lines in the skin about them, and at the corners of the mouth. There was a smell about her of dom-palm oil, which stirred thoughts he had not had for more than a decade. The thoughts returned to his heart with a vividness that shook him; but he knew that this was not a place he wanted to revisit. He was safe now. He had grown too far away to be enmeshed again.
They watched each other with careful eyes. He wondered how much he had changed to her. Her eyes, familiar and yet a stranger’s, told him nothing. But there was a quiet grace about her which had been bestowed by what emotion? Grief? He could not tell. She seemed calm, collected within herself, as if she had come to terms with whatever fate might throw at her.
There was something in the atmosphere between them that was old. It was that which they had created in the air between them when they were together, and now it had come back like a ghost. It had nothing to do with their present lives, it had been dead for more than ten years, and yet here it was again.
They continued to look at each other.
‘Huy,’ she said at last.
‘Aahmes.’
‘You are welcome.’
‘It has been long.’
She looked around the room with a trace of sadness in her face. ‘They have offered you nothing.’
‘It does not matter.’
‘I suppose he simply left you here. We have only two servants left. Most of the house is closed up.’
‘What has happened?’ Huy asked.
‘I will tell you,’ she said.
Chapter Three
They sat down on the benches, opposite each other across the low table. Aahmes had summoned one of her servants – the silent woman – and instructed her to bring bread and beer. Then her heart changed, and before the woman had shuffled out of sight, she recalled her and asked her to bring cakes and wine instead. The woman hesitated for a breath’s space, looking uncertainly from Aahmes to Huy, and then back to her mistress. Finally, with an almost imperceptible shrug, she left them.
‘There is no need to economise on such an occasion,’ said Aahmes, with the hint of a shy smile.
‘I have brought no gift,’ replied Huy apologetically. ‘I have only just arrived here. It was important to find out what you know about Heby. I did not expect to find you like this. You wrote nothing of it in your letters.’
She looked at him. ‘Once you were poor and abandoned in the City of the Horizon. You did not even have Heby and me anymore. And yet the gods did not leave you there to rot. For us, too, the Great Cat will cut the head off the Snake.’
‘I pray it.’
She sighed, looking at him again as if she did not quite believe him. ‘It is difficult, seeing you again.’
‘Yes.’
‘Would we have ever met again if Heby had not disappeared?’
‘Unless there had been another reason – no.’
‘Perhaps that would have been better.’
Huy felt obscurely hurt by this remark. He said. ‘But we meet, at least, with purpose. This is no sentimental revisiting of a grave. Our son still exists between us.’
‘We are three strangers.’
Huy was silent for a moment. Then he said: ‘I cannot believe that you are a stranger to him, or he to you.’
It was Aahmes’ turn to be silent. Huy did not find her silence reassuring.
‘Come, we must find him.’
‘If he is alive.’
‘If he is alive; but you said in your letter that you were certain that he lived.’
‘Yes.’ She looked around the room uncertainly, as if there were someone lurking in the shadows. But the only person to emerge from them was the woman, carrying a tray with a flask of wine and two cups, and a small dish of honey cakes.
‘This will not be as good as the wine you are used to in the Southern Capital,’ she said, apologetically again, as she poured. ‘It is from the island of Alasa, to the north in the Great Green. Menuhotep does a little importing of it.’
‘He knows merchants in Alasa?’
‘Yes.’ There was the faintest hesitation in her voice. ‘They are seamen. Their ships are often here.’
‘We understand little of them in the Southern Capital,’ said Huy. ‘But then, trade in the north is something the king entrusts to his regents here.’
‘Yes.’
Huy sipped the wine she had offered him. It was sharper, more resinous than the drink he was used to. But it was good, and he said so. She looked pleased.
‘You see, I have become a northerner now,’ she said.
The cakes were dry and old. He
ate two, for politeness’ sake, and glanced around the room once more. What was the rest of the house like? He could tell that it was vast, bigger perhaps than the governor’s mansion.
‘I can still read your heart,’ she said. She had been watching him, smiling, as he struggled with the cakes.
‘Tell me what has happened.’
‘He would not want you to know. He is very proud. He has tried to close his eyes to it, but...’ she sighed again, then seemed to pull herself together, and continued: ‘It is the war. The war has interrupted the cedar trade. Menuhotep had not been long enough established to create a stockpile, and he – we – reached out too far for this house. We borrowed for it, and we borrowed to start trading. If it had not been for the war, we would have managed to pay back our loans and no-one would ever have noticed that we were in debt. Now, we have had to let everything go. The house, too, except that no-one wants it – Menuhotep has offered to sell it for as little as the price of a decent trading ship to ply the River on – but even that is too high for anyone here who can afford to pay it.’
‘Could he not borrow more to keep going? Everyone knows the war will soon end.’
‘They will not help him anymore. Do not tell him I told you this. He will be here soon. He wants to meet you.’
‘Why will they not help him?’
‘I do not know. Perhaps we have not been here long enough to be accepted. This is a small society, Huy. It is not like the Southern Capital, or Peru-nefer.’
‘I have lived in a small town.’
‘Did you like it?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘There is no chance to be anonymous in a small town.’
‘Heby liked it here.’
‘When did he join the army?’
‘As soon as he got the opportunity to train for a chariot brigade.’
‘That must have been hard.’ The chariot brigades were manned by the elite troops of the army.
‘Commander Userhet favoured him. The boy was burning to be a soldier.’