by Anton Gill
‘I told them he was defrauding them of a fair price. Just him. Not the others. And I paid them well. With goods I had taken from Ipur’s own strongroom.’
Huy looked from his son to Nofretka, who turned and met his gaze.
‘Did you know this?’ he asked her.
‘I have learnt it.’
‘I love her. We have already exchanged the Words. Her wrong had to be avenged.’
‘Like that?’
‘Sometimes the law is too slow for justice. Ay’s law especially.’
‘It is the law of the Black Land.’
‘Ay rules the country for himself. He still carries the taint of the Great Criminal. What is needed now is a man who will lead us back to greatness.’
Heby had spoken with passion and he knew he had said too much. He reined himself in, but his breathing was hard. Nofretka was looking at him with the trace of a question in her eyes. Psaro’s eyes were lowered.
‘I am an official of the pharaoh’s court,’ said Huy quietly.
‘Yes,’ said Heby. He was silent again for a time, but when he next spoke his tone was gentler, almost pleading. ‘You must understand. Ipur had hurt Nofretka – he had almost destroyed her life. But in other cases he had actually killed children. They let him get away with it. He was too valuable to the community. We cannot have a country in which such things can be done. If official justice cannot be impartial, those who understand it best must take it into their own hands.’
Huy thought that he would understand his son better if the death of Ipur had been a simple revenge killing for the rape of Nofretka. But it began to sound like something more. Like a campaign.
‘How did you manage to get into Ipur’s strongroom so easily?’
Heby smiled. ‘Forgive me. I must keep some secrets.’
Huy thought about Senofer and Meten, but he said, ‘Theft has no place in your moral scheme of things?’
‘It was a means to an end. And what do you think Ipur’s fortune is based on – and that of the other merchants and leaders of this town – other than theft?’
‘What, all of them?’
‘The leaders. The ones who must be supplanted.’
‘By whom?’
‘By the just.’
‘Of whom you are one?’
‘Yes.’
‘And who are the others?’
‘Cheruiri is one. There were more. But you cannot picture to yourself what a cesspit this city is, father!’
Again the passion which he was clearly fighting hard to restrain broke out in his voice, and his stern features became those of the child he still almost was, whose nascent sense of justice seemed so outraged by the scattering of venal compromise he saw about him, but which most of us, thought Huy, finally come to accept as part of the general pettiness and disappointment of life. Not that there had been anything petty about Ipur’s behaviour, or the connivance of others at it for their own convenience. Was Huy becoming too cynical? Had he not seen enough to realise that there was just as much good as bad in man – that it was simply that in the perpetual struggle, bad always seemed to be getting the upper hand. But never quite, Huy reminded himself. Never quite. Life was a test which Ra set us – but there could be no giving up on it: to do so would be to surrender the world to evil; and the world was all we knew: only a fool would place his confidence in the hereafter.
But you did not right wrongs like this. You would destroy the centre of things if you tried to. Huy looked at his son’s face and there, for a moment, in the captured expression of a breath’s space, he saw his son as he had known him, and his heart became a well.
‘The people here have been slave-running to Alasa and making a profit from the prisoners-of-war General Horemheb has been sending back to be sold as labourers in our own fields. They have falsified the accounts of the deals they have made, and they will pay Horemheb a fraction of what they have made.’
‘You mean the king,’ corrected Huy quietly.
‘Yes,’ said Heby, but he did not speak the pharaoh’s name.
‘What is this, Heby?’ asked Huy. ‘Horemheb is no fool. He will see the accounts and if they show the amount he is expecting – or close to it – he will be satisfied.’
‘The General will have no time to inspect the transactions personally. he will trust the governor. They drew up an official record because they know that it will be required for the State Archive; but the true profit is higher than anyone could imagine. Kamose will tell the General what he wants to hear, and Kamose is one of them.’
‘Who are the others?’
‘Userhet and Atirma. Duaf and Ipur were part of the conspiracy too.’
‘And they are both dead,’ said Huy, glancing at Nofretka.
‘Yes. But I am guiltless of Duaf’s blood.’ There was no tone of regret at the merchant’s killing, however, and it was easy to see how it profited Heby. Nofretka kept her eyes on the view from the window. For the first time, Huy became away of the clatter and conversation of the market beyond it – the sounds seemed to be coming from another world.
‘And what of Ipur’s sons?’
‘Ah. My friends Senofer and Meten.’ Heby smiled coldly. ‘It was a jest of the gods, I think, that through them I first learned what was going on. I know now why they invited me to join them. I was to be their tool – the soldier who would serve his purpose as a trained killer before being thrown to the crocodiles.’ He broke off for a time as his inner eye reflected on some memory:
‘We called ourselves vigilantes, without knowing what that meant. We thought we were an elite, the only ones capable of breaking the wicked stranglehold the old men had on this town. For Atirma, led by his own greed, was nothing but their tool.’
‘What did you plan?’
‘I thought, simply to expose the unlawful slave-trading, and, when I learnt of his crimes against children at last, to bring Ipur to the impalement stake. Not that he would ever have suffered such a fate. His death was a relatively merciful one, and my regret is that it could not have been less so.’ He looked at Huy fiercely. ‘It took me a long time to see what was really going on.’
‘Was that when you decided to go into hiding here?’
‘Almost. Time was catching up with me. I knew that I would soon be sent to the war. I did not fear that,’ he broke off and his look became beseeching again. ‘I did not fear that, father. Whatever else you doubt, believe that.’
Huy inclined his head. He felt tired. He kept looking at Nofretka, but her face was a mask. Psaro was so silent he might have been part of the wall.
‘Meten worked for Duaf. You know that. He is a scribe and he took care of Duaf’s records. He kept all the books – including the slaving accounts. There were two sets of those books: the ones for the State Archive, and the ones which itemised the real transactions.’
‘Why did they keep them at all?’
Heby looked at his father sharply. ‘Because they didn’t trust one another. They all had to see what the shareout was, and that each of them was getting an equally thick slice of the loaf.’
‘But they trusted Meten.’
‘Yes. They thought he was one of them.’
‘Had he been?’
‘No. The brothers had deliberately infiltrated the group in order to expose it. I had seen the Alasa boats at the army camp jetties. I must have inherited something from you. I asked questions, if only of myself. What were those ships doing there? They came at night. The soldiers were kept far from the jetties. We were told the prisoners-of-war were being ferried to riverboats for transport to slave markets to the south. Not a word of it was true. When Senofer and Meten approached me I was glad. I thought I had fallen among friends.’
‘Did they say how they felt about their father?’
Heby looked embarrassed. ‘They said, justice had to be impartial.’
‘I am sure they did.’ Huy turned to Nofretka. ‘Had you met my son by then?’
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘But I did not know what he was planning. My f
amily knew his.’
‘Everything is kept close in a city like this,’ said Heby. ‘That is why it can choke you. It has choked Menuhotep. He would have nothing to do with the slave-running. I do not say that his motives for refusing to do so were pure. His business was failing and he was frightened of getting into even deeper water. But they made sure that they broke him anyway. Still, it is as you described good and evil: he is not entirely crushed yet; and I will be the means of his recovery.’
Huy caught Nofretka looking at Heby with adoration.
‘So, your justice is not impartial,’ he said harshly.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You are driven by nothing but vengeance,’ said Huy. ‘On Ipur for what he did to Nofretka, on the others because of what they did to Menuhotep. That includes your father, Nofretka. Your father who is dead.’
‘I told you we should not let this man into our secret,’ she hissed at Heby. ‘He will destroy everything.’
‘No,’ said Heby levelly. ‘He will not.’ His tone chilled Huy’s blood.
‘Did you kill Duaf because he suspected you of sleeping with his wife?’ he asked. Less and less did he feel that the situation in the room was a real one. He seemed to watch it from outside himself, as if it were a scene played out by actors. In truth it seemed so.
‘No. Why would I kill Duaf? Because he suspected me of being his wife’s lover, he never for a moment thought who my real mistress might be.’
‘What would he have done if he had found out?’
‘He would have seen to it that I was on the first military transport out of the city. Nofretka was to marry one of the brothers.’
‘Which?’
‘Meten, probably. He saw her every day. And Senofer had other interests.’
‘What were they?’
Heby glanced at Nofretka, and spread his hands. ‘He is the lover of Hemet. When I learnt that, I saw what they planned to do. Certainly they would expose the corruption of the city’s leaders. Atirma would fall with them. His estates would be forfeit. His wife would divorce him, leaving her free to marry Senofer, who, as one of those responsible for exposing the corruption, would certainly stand to gain the management of the confiscated land and property. If Meten married Nofretka, the bulk of the city’s wealth would have fallen to the brothers.’ Heby paused. ‘Senofer also knew that by his father’s death he would be almost sure to inherit Ipur’s office, which included control of the port.’
Huy looked at his son. All the time that Heby had been speaking a new feeling had been descending on the scribe: that he could read his own actions, actions he might have taken, in those of the young man. But not all. He thought of Ipur’s death. Heby had instructed the sailors to beat him to death. From where had the boy inherited such an instinct?
‘When did you decide to desert?’ he asked, using the word deliberately and noting that it made Heby flinch. What impelled him to goad his son like this? Was it fear? He would not forget quickly the look in Heby’s eyes as he had reassured Nofretka a few moments earlier.
‘As soon as I knew what the brothers really planned. But my departure for the war upset them: they had counted on me to do any killing that might be necessary – of Atirma, for example. They were already beginning to think that his death would be the surest way to their gain in that direction. But then I was removed from the senet board. And I had learnt about Ipur by then. I got drunk with Meten one night and he told me.’
‘He knew what you felt for Nofretka?’
‘Yes. Just as I knew about Meritre.’
Huy was silent.
‘What is it?’ asked Heby.
‘Nothing,’ replied Huy. ‘Tell me how you managed to get away from your company.’
Heby let his own question go, though his eyes still held it for a moment. Huy hoped it would linger there, and in time he would provide his own answer. He did not want to give one now – and besides, it was not conclusive.
‘Fortunately, I had made one firm friend in the city.’
‘Cheruiri.’
‘Yes. He knew my stepfather well.’
‘Indeed?’ Huy looked up sharply. Evidently Cheruiri was good at keeping his hand concealed.
‘As he worked for Kamose, he was able to help me. And I had three friends among my comrades. They knew what I had to do. Our ship sailed before dawn, to catch the tide. Everyone knew it would be one of the last transports out – there was even a fuss about risking such valuable troops as charioteers when the outcome of the war was a foregone conclusion – so that the overseers were careless. Only one ship was going and it was very full. I did not have to wait long. We were barely under way, and it was not yet light. With my friends’ help I was able to slip over the side and swim to shore. There is a big rock the shape of a river horse on the beach just to the east of the city, beyond the River. Cheruiri met me there with sailors’ clothes. He did not stay with me long. I waited until the sun began to rise and made my way to the River. I got across to the harbour quarter in a ferry boat. I was already just another riverman.’
‘What about Ipur’s death?’
‘I had arranged that before I left. My only anxiety was that the Alasans would not carry it out, even though I had told Cheruiri not to complete payment until the job was done.’
‘Naturally,’ said Huy.
‘I do not expect you to approve,’ snapped Heby. ‘We are different, you and I. You owe your skin to compromise, and if I speak to you thus without respect it is because you have never done anything to deserve any from me.’
Huy swallowed this insult in silence. Horemheb would be here within a day now. What would his son do? Make an appearance at the General’s first audience – wearing, no doubt, the finery he had on today? Make his denouncements of everybody then? But he was still a deserter, and Huy was not convinced that Horemheb would overlook the fact.
He became aware that Heby was watching him, taking his silence for rebuke.
‘It is true that we are strangers,’ Huy said finally, with more forcefulness than he meant. ‘But we are still blood, and the question I must ask you out of the love I had for you, and still have for the child I knew, is: how can you possibly prove your case?’
Heby smiled. ‘You are good to overlook my hastiness. Forgive me. I am tired and the prey is about to enter the trap.’ He paused for a breath’s space. ‘I have the papyrus rolls on which all the accounts are written. The true and the false. In Meten’s hand, with Duaf’s notations. It will be enough to make the General start asking questions. He may even ask you to head the enquiries.’
‘How did you get them?’ asked Huy.
‘I took them,’ said Nofretka.
Huy prayed that Ay would recall him before the sun next set.
‘That will not explain or excuse Ipur’s murder,’ he said.
‘I will testify,’ said Nofretka. ‘And Heby and I have exchanged the Words.’
*
Once outside, Huy felt the warmth of the sunshine as gratefully as a lizard. He hurried across the little square and back towards the northern quarter as if a demon were at his heels, and he did not pause to speak to Psaro until they had covered half the distance.
‘They will say the books are forgeries.’
‘But if Horemheb starts an investigation and they cannot produce the slaves...’ said Psaro.
‘Horemheb will not have time for such a thing. The word of a couple of children against the governor, the garrison commander, and the sons of one of the town’s leading citizens? He will not even look at the papyrus scrolls.’
‘What will you do?’
Huy spread his hands. ‘Heby is bent on his own course.’
‘You must stop him.’
‘No. This must be played out. Much depends on how frightened Senofer and Meten will be by the loss of the books.’ Huy thought too about the reactions of Kamose and Userhet. If Heby’s accusations were true. And what would he himself say to Kamose about the deaths of Ipur and Duaf? He did not want to b
elieve that his son was responsible for both, but he knew that it was possible. Why had Heby confessed so openly, so naively, to causing Ipur’s death? Did he really believe that this was a world where matters could be put right so simply? And what would Huy do with the information? There was no proof. If he accused Heby of the killing in front of Horemheb, he would be playing into the hands of the men Heby sought to bring to justice. The wisest course would be to remain silent. But was that possible?
There was something else to consider. Had they been followed? Psaro had said they could rely on Parenefer to deal with anyone sent to shadow Huy, but Huy had remained sceptical. They made their way to the drinking house where Psaro had arranged to meet Parenefer.
But he was not there.
‘Something has gone wrong,’ said Psaro, not meeting the scribe’s eye.
Chapter Ten
Night had fallen, but the streets remained crowded and dusty. The moon was high and full, and its light was strong enough to augment that of the torches that had been lit in the streets as they hurried back the way they had come. People were busy, too excited to sleep, and getting in one another’s way. Victory decorations were going up: painted wooden columns at street corners, swags of brightly-dyed linen draped round windows, and golden images of the god Reshpu and the goddess Neith. Huy and Psaro pushed their way through the throng, which seemed always to be going in the opposite direction to theirs, as panic mounted in Huy’s body and formed itself into a tight ball at the base of his throat.
It was like making progress in a dream, when after several strides forward you find you have got nowhere. Huy’s heart pounded the message out to him: you are too late; you are too late; you are too late; but still he forced his way through the mob, Psaro at his heels, aware of one or two faces turned round to him in surprise, the one grim-faced man in a mass of holidaymakers.
When they reached the little market square they found it fuller, but otherwise unchanged, except for one detail. The woman stallholder from the Land of Two Rivers was nowhere to be seen. The stall, with its load of earthenware and glass stood unattended except for the monkey, which had finished its bowl of dates and sat on his haunches looking up at the people with round, aggressive, frightened eyes.