by Anton Gill
‘Huy,’ said Kamose again, reminding them of the subject in hand.
‘Dogged, intelligent, harmless,’ said Userhet. Privately he thought he would rather be with Huy as a companion in a crisis than with either of these two. He had liked the scribe, and respected him. Something was stirring in his heart that was very like shame. But would he have felt it, he wondered, if he had not felt that justice was about to catch up with him? In his heart’s eye, he saw again those soldiers who had been prisoners, crowded below the decks of the Alasa ships with heavy wooden blocks tied to their ankles. Some had fallen and broken their ankles. What had happened to them in Alasa? If they had been sold here they would not have been treated like that. They would have had the chance to become free men, even, in time, to return to their homes. He remembered the knouts and the whips the Alasa traders had used. Why? They were damaging the goods they had just bought! Or didn’t they care? Or were they frightened?
‘Have you set men to seek out Heby?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Especially since Duaf’s death,’ replied Atirma, in a more conciliatory voice. Perhaps he regretted his snide outburst? But not for any other than a political reason, Userhet felt sure.
‘And have they seen him?’
‘No.’
‘This is a small city,’ said Userhet, trying to keep the triumph out of his voice. ‘You who have lived here long must know it better than any mere soldier who’s only been here with his parents for a few years. And yet he can successfully hide from your men?’
‘It is a port. The harbour quarter is like a labyrinth!’
‘If you live in a town, you know every twist and turn of its streets.’
Atirma sat in sulky silence.
‘Surely if your men haven’t found him, he is not here?’ persisted Userhet.
‘That may be.’
‘I am sure that Heby is dead, either in the northern empire or drowned in the Great Green! It is fantastic to suppose that he is here, bent on some strange revenge against us! Why?’ He paused, to let his point sink in. ‘No one but his mother has seen him. Perhaps she wanted to see him. Perhaps she saw his khaibit.’
‘He knew about us. He knew that we were cheating the empire,’ said Kamose drily. ‘He was close to Senofer and Meten.’
‘Meten is one of us,’ said Atirma, who looked as shocked as Userhet.
‘His father was one of us. Meten – I do not know.’
‘We must get the accounts. We have been too slack!’
‘How did we know that Duaf was going to die? As long as he was alive, we had no reason to suspect that the books weren’t safe. Meten works for him in his house.’
‘But the accounts will reflect the deals the pharaoh expected would be made,’ said Atirma as a new thought struck him. ‘Not the ones we actually struck. There won’t be a word about Alasa in them.’
‘Meten kept shadow copies with the true figures,’ said Kamose. ‘Duaf himself would have ordered him to. Otherwise we would have no record from which to decide our own shares.’
‘If Heby is in league with the brothers, and if he has access to the secret accounts, then he will have more than enough evidence against us to justify his desertion,’ observed Userhet drily. In the face of such a dreadful prospect, he found himself suddenly calm, almost detached from the proceedings, as if he were in a dream from which he would soon, mercifully, awaken.
*
‘He does not believe that Heby is alive,’ said Aahmes. They were walking in her garden, and Huy noticed that someone had made an effort to clear it of weeds. Though no new plants gave it colour, it looked tidy, and even proud of itself. He noticed too that Aahmes had taken his arm as they walked. It seemed the most natural thing in the world, and far from awakening old lions of memory, it seemed to soothe them, to confirm the transition from love to distance to friendship.
‘I find it hard to do so,’ he replied. He had not told her about the buckle, while doubt remained in his own mind, and although it was a striking coincidence, it was far from being proof of anything. Psaro had been disappointed and sceptical when he had pointed this out to him, and he was sure that Aahmes’ reaction would be the same.
‘Don’t you even hope that he was truly here?’
‘Hope breeds disappointment,’ said Huy, quoting a proverb.
‘But without it how do we reach the end, how do we pass through the darkness?’ countered Aahmes, quoting another.
They walked in silence. The garden was square, contained by crumbling mud walls. Huy gazed into the turgid water of the rectangular fishpond. He doubted if any fish still lived in it. But he was wrong. As they paused near it and he looked at its brown surface, the mottled algae which floated there were broken by a stream of bubbles, and moments later the great head of a carp was visible for an instant.
It was true that he wanted Heby to be alive. He had tried to fight against the feeling, but it grew stronger despite all the arguments of his rational heart. Heby would be a stranger, of course he knew that; but he was still his son. His only child. Would he have felt differently if he and Senseneb had been able to have children, if he had been able to start a second family of his own? He did not know the answer to that and he knew that he never would, that it was futile to pursue such a question.
Perhaps he was also curious. A part of him feared meeting his son, feared the discovery of what kind of man his son had turned out to be. Much of what he had heard about Heby filled him with misgiving. Would a natural love still survive between them? It was more likely to have done so on his part than Heby’s, for his son’s memory of him must be non-existent. How had Aahmes portrayed Huy to his son? It was another question he dared not ask. Meeting her again, she did not seem bitter or sad because of their separation – at the time it had been a mutual acknowledgement, after years of hesitation, that they were mismatched. He had been more fearful of the loneliness than she had. She had taken it better, when it had come, than he had suspected; it had come to both of them, though, as a relief. But to Heby? He was just old enough to see what was happening, if not to understand it. Perhaps it had been better that distance and fortune had kept them apart so long. Even so, Huy felt a resentment that Heby had become so entirely Menuhotep’s son.
‘If the war ends soon, it may not be too late. We may recover. We still have the house,’ Aahmes said. She found it far easier to confide in this man, who was so familiar in her memory, though he had become a stranger, than she had imagined possible.
‘What of your other children?’ Huy had almost stumbled over what word to use to describe them. But he had asked the question out of politeness. He did not care about them, and gave them none of his thoughts. They seemed to him an abstraction, though they must contain much of Aahmes that he would recognise.
‘They are too young to notice much. Of course they see the house run down and the people gone; but the empty rooms are an adventure to them.’
Huy did not ask about the comments of their friends, or about how Menuhotep and Aahmes were handling their teaching. He was, after all, not an intimate of the household, and he felt disinclined to become one. A part of him enjoyed seeing Aahmes again, but much of the enjoyment stemmed from the realisation that he was at last free of her – he had been for a long time, but he had needed this meeting to confirm it. Just as she was free of him. If they met now as strangers, they would not be attracted to one another. They had changed much. Their life together seemed like a dream. That, if anything, was what disturbed him: accepting the apparent unimportance of his past.
‘And Senseneb? You have told me little about her.’
‘We stand by each other.’
‘Aren’t you sorry not to have had children with her?’
‘No.’
He found himself tongue-tied when speaking of Senseneb to Aahmes. It would have been easier to show his former wife how he now lived. Would she have envied him? He could not read he heart, and so he doubted it. Envy was not part of Aahmes’ character; she was a person sufficie
nt to herself. She would not brood on the nature of memory, for example, and she was luckier and stronger than he was as a result. One thing he would not do, and that was confide in Aahmes that he was unhappy with Senseneb: he scarcely yet admitted as much to himself; and he did not want to confess yet another failure even to his own heart.
‘If Heby is here, he is keeping himself well hidden,’ said Huy. ‘I have asked Cheruiri to make enquiries and he has come up with nothing.’
‘Do you think I was mistaken?’
‘Somehow I do not. I also feel that he is here. But whether that feeling is born of the same wish to see him that you have, I do not know. The part of me which reasons, agrees with Menuhotep.’
‘We have commissioned the statue,’ said Aahmes. ‘How we will pay for it I do not know.’
‘Let me.’
Aahmes looked at him gratefully. ‘I hope you do not think I –’
‘I should have made the offer long ago. My only concern is that Menuhotep –’
‘You are still Heby’s father. Nothing can usurp the right of blood.’
Perhaps the right of caring can, thought Huy. But he had never had that option.
‘Can you describe him to me?’ he asked.
Aahmes looked amused. ‘I have already done so.’
‘Do so again.’
‘I wish there was a picture.’
As she spoke his heart drifted back to the image he had tried to conjure up of the young Heby he had known. How much would his son mean to him now? He acknowledged again that a meeting with the boy who was now a man was something that he half looked forward to, but half dreaded. The great likelihood was in truth that they would be strangers to each other. But Huy also acknowledged the curse of his own curiosity. He didn’t know how much Heby actually meant to him anymore. Probably little. He was prepared to be disappointed in his son’s outlook: the shaping of that was Menuhotep’s and Aahmes’ doing – though Heby himself must have been naturally inclined towards it. Aahmes had told him that Heby had always been someone who took life seriously: duty and order had always been concepts by which he set great store. He had not made friends easily, and those that he had were useful to him, rather than people he chose for their own sake. Huy noticed a certain detachment in the way his former wife spoke of their son, and began to wonder what her own relationship with Heby had been. After all, blood was no guarantee of any more interesting bond. He also wondered about the friendship he gathered Heby had had with the sons of Ipur – had it in fact been more of an alliance than anything else?
*
Meten thought he had better bide his time. He knew that his brother was right, that he must now bury whatever feelings he had had for Meritre, without bothering to sort them out in retrospect, and concentrate on the daughter. There were good reasons apart from the practical ones for doing so: Nofretka was beautiful and had inherited all her mother’s beauty, while being young and full of the spirit of Hathor. But the spirit of her father also lurked in her face, and that reminded Meten of his hated presence even though he was gone. He knew he could not feel for the daughter what he had felt for the mother. But he would proceed with the plan. Senofer was right: the opportunities they had now were too good to miss and they would never present themselves again. There would be time to sort out any problems incurred on the way after they were safely settled in power. Once Nofretka’s goods were secured, who knows – she could join her parents, he thought. Let their ghosts gibber at him in vain – he had no fear of them. He would cut the hearts out of their bodies and let their kas hunger and wander. He knew how to protect himself against the dead.
But it was too soon after her father’s death for him to approach her yet. Senofer was wrong. He could afford to take his time. He knew she still held Heby in her heart, and no other suitor presented any possible rivalry.
Securing the account books was urgent. He had kept both the official scrolls of the slaving transactions, detailing phantom sales of slaves to Atirma, Kamose, Duaf and Ipur, together with other big farmers in the outlying countryside, who in fact lived too far away to have an inkling of the traffic, and his own private record of the actual sales to Alasa, safely concealed together in Duaf’s work room. For a time following his former employer’s death he had been unable to go to the house – the place was in mourning and all business was suspended as a mark of respect – but at the earliest opportunity he returned.
The door was opened by Parenefer, who admitted him without question. The matter of Duaf’s affairs was an important one, and Meten alone could unravel and explain the complicated lists of the merchant’s stores and properties. Indeed, the fulfilment of the task was expected of him. It was the last duty he would have to perform as an employee of the household, unless Nofretka elected to retain him as her steward – a slim likelihood in Parenefer’s opinion, who had had the opportunity to observe them together over several years.
‘Where is Nofretka?’
‘Lady Nofretka is not here,’ replied Parenefer, pointedly giving his mistress the title she was now owed, and equally pointedly failing to tell Meten where she was. Meten understood both the reproof and the insult, but his heart was preoccupied with more urgent matters than to consider what to do about this uppish servant when the time came. Without answering, he made his way to the work room. Five days had passed since he had been here, and in that time much had happened.
News had come of the end of the war. The swift falcon-ship carrying the senior brigade-commander who had brought it was quickly followed by the first heavy troopship, returning with precious chariots and horses. More news had followed with it: three heavily-armed companies with limited chariot support would remain in the northern empire, stationed at two of the ports and one inland town. The Kheta were in full retreat northwards and the Khabiri had fled far to the north and east. Their destruction, the returning troops reported, had been complete: no-one who had been caught in the last battles had been spared, so that the people should remember the cost of rising against the Black Land for many generations to come. The lesson taught meant the ruin of much land that had once been fertile and green, ran the military scribes’ official report; and the death of many mothers and children. But those who remain alive will not only bow their backs to the king; but be prevented by hunger and need from any thought now other than how to survive. The soldiers who returned were flushed and excited, exhausted and relieved; but in many of the faces there was pain, and many eyes reflected scenes that were better left undescribed.
The worst news of all for Meten was that Horemheb had already embarked for the voyage back to the City of the Sea. Of course they had expected it, but the gods graced the General with a following wind, and his arrival would be far sooner than they had hoped. Duaf’s death, Senofer had finally remarked bitterly, could not have occurred at a worse time: if only the old man had died earlier, or waited until after the General had set off for the Southern Capital. Meten had bitten his lip, and waited impatiently until he could recover the books. No excuse could be found to recover them earlier than custom prescribed.
But they would barely have time to organise themselves against the General’s return. The General’s thoughts would be on greater matters than corruption in a provincial port; the brothers knew that they would have to capture his attention hard if they were to gain control of the little world they sought to dominate.
Meten reached the door and opened it. A musty smell reached him from the room, as if Duaf’s presence still hung over it. Meten glanced around hastily before entering and closing the door again behind him. He crossed to the bank of shelves which covered the wall opposite the window, and crouched by the lowest shelf on the left. He hastily pulled out several dusty scrolls of papyrus on which faded figures chronicled forgotten transactions in minute detail. Behind them, rolled into neat leather tubes to protect them, were the accounts he sought. But when he reached for them, his fingers clutched air. He bent to look into the dark, empty space, as if his eyes would not confirm wha
t his hands had told him. But there was nothing there. His head soared, and he made himself sit up and breathe deeply and regularly. Perhaps the second shelf? But he knew as he searched, his gestures suddenly furious, scattering carefully stacked papers violently across the floor, that he had not forgotten the precise hiding place he had used. The papers were gone. Who had taken them?
*
Leaving Aahmes, Huy decided for no logical reason to make his way back to the governor’s compound by way of the alley where Psaro had found the military buckle. Whether he hoped to find some further, more conclusive, clue that Heby had been there, or whether he thought his son might even be there, waiting for him, he could not tell, but he imagined that some such wish had impelled him. His heart carried no burden as he walked. He knew that, now the war was over and Horemheb returning, his summons to return to the Southern Capital would arrive any day. He would have to leave the City of the Sea with all his questions unanswered. He was not sure that he was even sorry. It would be easy and reassuring to return to the south, despite the stormclouds that he foresaw a triumphant Horemheb would bring with him.
Halfway back he decided to delay returning to the compound and he diverted his steps towards his favourite drinking house. When he arrived there he found Psaro already waiting for him.
‘I considered following you to Lady Aahmes’ house,’ said his body-servant with a grin. ‘But by the time I was given this it would have been too late to catch you there. So I decided to intercept you here.’
Huy smiled too, though he was almost troubled to see how well his servant read his heart, and took the small shard of pottery which Psaro handed to him. On it a brief note was scratched in a hand that was still almost a child’s.
‘Lady Nofretka requests a meeting with me,’ he said, unnecessarily, for he knew that Psaro would not have been able to resist reading what the message contained.