City of the Sea

by Anton Gill

  ‘He needed to die. He was beginning to be suspicious of me.’

  ‘Of you and his wife?’

  ‘He killed her. I felt sure she had not gone away. She would have told me. So I kept watch on him. I found him in the tunnel, where he buried her, drooling over her. He had to die.’

  Senofer looked scornful. ‘You speak as if you loved Meritre in truth. Do you know your heart at all?’

  ‘You do not know what love is, and you will never know,’ replied Meten.

  ‘It is something you would do well to avoid in future. There is no place for it in the lives of great men.’ Senofer paused. ‘Horemheb’s star is rising. We must follow in his train. Why has he not looked at us? Why has he not confirmed my rank?’

  ‘Let the feast come to an end. Then we will see.’

  ‘By then we must have the books.’

  ‘And if she will not speak?’

  ‘She must!’

  Meten looked at his brother. ‘We cannot damage her. And even if we could I believe that she is now indifferent to pain. I wonder if we can hurt her any more than we have already.’

  ‘Then we must search the house again.’ Senofer bit into his index finger in his rage, and drew blood. But all was not lost. By what was almost sheer chance – by a gift of the gods – they had found Heby, and they had been able to trace him to his lair without his suspecting anything. The serpent about to strike sees nothing but its prey; it does not see the forked stick plunging down on its neck.

  So it had been with Heby, who had almost been their undoing, but who would not now trouble the brothers again. It was a pity that they had not been able to find out from Heby what he had done with the books, but he seemed proof against any drug. At least they had tracked him down. It was good that Atirma had sent his man straight to Senofer with the news. But Senofer knew why he had done so. It was for the same reason that Atirma’s was the only name not to be besmirched by the evidence in the books: all he had done, on paper, was legitimately buy some prisoners-of-war as slaves. Atirma liked to keep his hands clean and his back covered.

  Which was well with Senofer – because as long as Atirma believed himself to be safe with the brothers, he would not be on his guard against them.

  *

  A group of soldiers returning to barracks drunk in the early dawn found Heby’s body on the white sand of the shore midway between the city and the encampment. He was still dressed in the elegant clothes in which he had met Huy, though they were torn and bloody now, and stained by the salt of the sea. He lay face down and the soldiers, who had sobered up very quickly, found it difficult, even with four of them working at it, to turn him on his back. They were half fearful of the face they would see when they did so, but no damage had been done to Heby. He had not been in the water long enough for the fish to get at him, and he had not lain long enough on the shore for the birds, so that beyond a slight puffiness his face was unchanged. One of the soldiers was a horse-handler and he recognised the young charioteer. Two of the men stayed with the corpse while the others ran to alert the camp.

  Huy knew what tidings the messenger from Userhet brought as soon as he saw the man’s face. Psaro was in the town, trying to trace Parenefer, and the scribe was glad that he was alone. What came over him first was – of all things – anger – and then a kind of numbness. Not the expected grief. Heby had remained a dream, for he had found no way back to his son through the brief conversation that the gods had allowed them. There was more in truth about Heby to cause him concern than relief. And yet Heby had been his son, his only child, the man who he hoped would be his link with the earth after he had gone. A sense of his own age, of his own futility, gripped him, and he found that his energies immediately rallied to fight it off. He had no time for that kind of reflection now. For the same reason he found it easy to withstand drink. Though he burned to wash his grief away with fig liquor, he knew that only the first sip of the first cup would be enough to dilute his will and his determination and turn his whole being into an uncharted swamp of remorse.

  Sadness filled him with an ache that went through his shoulders, his thighs, his heart, his gut. It was as if a wave of darkness and emptiness crashed inside him, and his heart reached out to the one person who stood as an island in the sea of his loneliness. He had barely thought of Senseneb all the time he had been in the City of the Sea: and even in his unformed grief a pitiless part of him questioned why he should do so with such desperate need now.

  All this filled the time that the messenger still stood, looking hopelessly on at a man turned wholly within himself. Huy pulled himself together. He would have to go to the encampment. Then he would have to see Aahmes.

  Userhet had arranged for Heby to be laid out on his own in one of the tents that had not yet been dismantled, for already the military encampment was breaking up. The regular soldiers did not know what fate yet held for them, but most were transferring to a new divisional camp near the Northern Capital. Only one company would be left here, to act as backup and liaison with the small force left in the newly quelled country which now would once more become part of the Black Land’s northern empire. It was unlikely that there would be trouble: Horemheb had left few men alive between the ages of fourteen and forty. The old would soon die, and the young would grow up under a new learning. They would keep their necks bent, at least for two generations. That was the way of punishment.

  Heby would not lie here long. Later that same morning the embalmer’s assistants would come for him and take him to the ibu for purification and the first preparations for eternity. It was hot once the sun was up and despite the wet linen swags around the interior of the tent and the four soldiers stationed with fans, the inexorable flies were gathering. The flies and the vultures and the fish, thought Huy: the gods have put them there to clean up our mess, to clean up the mess which we are. No wonder we hate them: they remind us of our lack of importance. He looked at his son. Heby seemed like a statue of himself, rather too sharply carved. The muscle had fallen from the arms and the flesh from the nose: was this the living being, full of hope and ambition, whom he had argued with yesterday, for whose future he had feared? There is something so vulnerable about the dead: the only rights they have left are those accorded them by the living. Do they, wondered Huy, really have need of food and drink anymore? Do the stone fruit and the painted wine truly refresh them? What is it like in the Fields of Aarru? Surely the only complete happiness is to be found where there is none – where there is no pain either, in oblivion, in the darkness where the Aten’s rays do not reach, where there is neither heat nor cold, water nor drought. Happiness and pain are the results of one another, the Nut and Geb, the elements of feeling, the elements of life. Surely death must be an escape from, not a continuation of, that long agony, that long uncertainty. I am born. I know not who I am nor what I was. Brightness hurts my eyes and sounds burst around me. Pain is near that will be like no pain I have felt before – beyond the pain of the screams and the spasms that thrust me forth into the light.

  There was nothing for him here: he might in truth have been looking at a statue, and not a very good one, of his son. Why were there no greater feelings in his heart? What meant more to him was the warmth of Userhet’s embrace when the commanding officer offered his condolences. Was that a kind of redemption? Was the mutual acknowledgement of each other’s sufferings the one consolation the gods had given us for the misfortune of being born human at all?

  He pulled himself together again. What thoughts we have when things go badly! And there were other things, other people, to think of.

  ‘What will happen to his memory?’

  Userhet said, ‘He was never officially noted down as a deserter. Perhaps he did not desert. Only now that his body is washed up do we have the truth: he fell overboard.’

  Huy knew that Userhet did not really believe that. He knew that the Commander was offering what help and comfort he could. Despite what Heby had told him about Userhet, he accepted the warmth of
the gesture. Huy would not prejudge. He did not know Userhet’s heart, but he could not find it in his own to believe that this man had been behind his son’s death. And in his heart there was still the unresolved question: did Heby also kill Duaf? Would he ever know for certain that he did not?

  He had intended to walk to Aahmes’ house, but when he found himself back at the house in the compound of the governor’s mansion he felt too weary to do so. Geb seemed to pull his body heavily earthwards. Psaro was not yet back. He bathed and changed by himself, thinking of the time when he had not been a high palace official, when he had lived alone in a little house in the harbour quarter of the Southern Capital. Many years ago. Much had happened since then and yet, truly, nothing had happened. A series of little events and one or two big moments, making up a life. Well, why not? Who was he to expect it to be more significant?

  He arranged for a litter to carry him across the town. During the journey he kept the curtains closed and concentrated on the rhythm of the carriage and the sounds of the city. The feast in the mansion continued, though Huy knew that the principal guests would have left it long ago for more important matters. Horemheb was still in the city. He would not leave for the Southern Capital yet – not until he had digested the latest reports of his spies. But the fate of the country was something Huy was prepared to ignore, at least for the moment. There was nothing he could do to influence it anyway.

  The house was more cheerful than he had seen it. It had been cleaned and as he followed the house-servant through it he noticed that one or two of the rooms had been opened. More light came into the interior, and the sunshine mocked his mission.

  Menuhotep greeted him. He carried some victory bunting in his hand and his step was brisker and his eye brighter than Huy had seen them before. His expression clouded when he saw Huy’s face.

  ‘You have news,’ he said.

  He took Huy to a terrace overlooking a quiet inner courtyard where an old vine still flourished and spread its branches across the part open to the sky, providing a cool green shade in which they sat. As well as he could, Huy told the man his story, omitting only what it would do no good to tell, breaking down in tears only once. Menuhotep listened in silence, and then he cried too – silent tears, and not for long.

  ‘Do you wish to tell Aahmes?’ asked Huy.

  ‘I think it is for you to do. He was your son. I cannot intrude on that.’

  Huy acknowledged Menuhotep’s generosity. He knew their grief had the same depth: he even wondered if the cedar merchant did not have a greater claim to it: Heby had been Huy’s son by blood, but Menuhotep’s by time and influence. Perhaps by love too. And Menuhotep could not be blamed for the thinking which had led Heby to his fate.

  ‘I had hoped for better times now,’ said Aahmes’ husband. ‘Another month and we would have had to sell the house for whatever we could get. Now I would give it away to have him back.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did it happen? Do you know?’

  Huy sighed. ‘It seems he drowned.’

  ‘Was it an accident? What was he doing in the town?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly,’ said Huy. ‘I believe he was engaged on some secret military mission.’

  ‘I see,’ said Menuhotep. Huy sensed the faint note of pride in his voice.

  ‘Where is Aahmes?’

  ‘In the east courtyard. Shall I come with you?’

  ‘No. She will need you, but let me do this alone.’

  *

  Aahmes had been expecting the news. He carried the feeling of it with him and he knew she had caught it as surely as if it had been written down in detail as soon as he entered the courtyard. She was alone, standing in a shaft of dusty sunshine which bathed her in a halo of light.

  After he had told her he stood near her, uncertain of what to do next. He became aware that she did not need his comfort. He saw Menuhotep waiting for her and she went to him without once looking back at Huy. Watching her go, the scribe understood that he had no place in her present: he belonged only to her past. When he met her again it would be to say goodbye, and as there was no longer any Heby to bind them with even ghostly cords, that goodbye, though neither of them would say as much, would be forever.

  He returned to the governor’s compound quickly and waiting for him there, as if in answer to an unspoken prayer, was an official he knew from the Southern Capital. Huy knew that his presence could only mean that Ay was recalling him. As so often, the pharaoh’s timing was perfect.

  But Neferabu’s grey and serious look as he handed Huy the rolled papyrus forestalled any cheerful greeting. The message, written in Kenna’s careful hand and clearly dictated by the king, carried no clue of anything amiss, beyond a certain urgency in its tone. Huy looked up from the papyrus into his fellow scribe’s face.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Ay is unwell.’

  ‘Unwell?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Huy looked at Neferabu keenly. ‘How unwell?’

  ‘There are messages for Kamose and Horemheb as well. News has reached the king of the general’s triumphant return. But he wants you to come back now. With me.’

  ‘When exactly?’

  Neferabu spread his hands, ‘As soon as the ship can be turned round.’

  ‘I need at least a day.’

  ‘Have you had any success in your search?’

  Huy told him what had happened. ‘There are arrangements to be made. My former wife and her husband will look after the full obsequies but I wish to talk to them about paying the cost.’

  Neferabu lowered his eyes. ‘I have no doubt we will make up time on the journey back. The wind will be with us.’

  ‘How ill is the king?’ Huy asked again.

  ‘There will be great changes soon,’ murmured Neferabu.

  ‘Where will I find you?’

  ‘I am staying in my cabin on the ship. The Goddess of Truth. Leave word for me if I am not there. And Huy –’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do not take too long. I cannot stand the smell of fish.’

  Psaro had returned from his vain search for Parenefer. The house-servant seemed to have disappeared as completely as his mistress, Nofretka. But their bodies had not been washed up on the shore, and that meant that they were still alive, somewhere. Heby had died because he was no longer useful.

  ‘Go to Horemheb. Request an audience,’ said Huy.

  Psaro looked at him in consternation. ‘I dare not.’

  ‘Yes. I will write the request. Horemheb may not have forgotten me. When he reads what I write he will at least be curious. I am sure you will bring back his agreement to a meeting.’

  Huy unrolled his leather writing pad and took out his palette, selecting a new reed and chewing the end himself to make the brush. Then he spat into the black ink to moisturise it and Psaro brought a small vase of water. Huy took a roll of clean papyrus which had not been used before and spread it on his pad. Holding it steady with his left arm, he dipped the new brush in the ink and wrote delicately and fluently. He found an unexpected comfort in the familiar actions, in the smell of the ink, the reed and the paper. He realised how much he needed the reassurance of what he knew best. No-one, surely, sought life’s horror: why did it always therefore find a way to seek a man out?

  But he was still upright, and self-pity was something which always made him feel impatient. He watched with satisfaction as his ink sank into the good paper, and realised with irritation that in his haste he had repeated the same phrase twice; simultaneously he saw that the irritation was the beginning of the cure. He immediately felt guilty about the short lease of his grief; but how well had he known Heby? How much of it was simply a sentimental attachment to the past? In any case, though tears are a relief, they do not last long. We feel shame because we think we ought to grieve longer, but we are more resilient than we believe we should be. He remembered the time when Nergal, god of plagues, had swept through the country. More men died than women. After a
year of death, new widows were remarrying within half the journey of Khons across the night sky – within ten days. We want to believe that we do not want to be cured of our grief – for lost loved ones, for lost opportunities, for mistakes; but life is too pitiless and too short to allow us such self-indulgence. Regret is a kind of affectation.

  Huy finished the letter and, drying it and rolling it, tied it with a strip of reed and handed it to Psaro.

  ‘Go now. Give it to no-one but Horemheb’s personal secretary. Take my badge of office. That will make things easier for you.’

  He had expected a long wait. As it was, the servants in the compound were only just beginning to light fires for the midday food when Psaro returned, hot and excited, but controlling his exuberance out of respect for Huy’s bereavement.

  ‘He will see you now,’ said Psaro. ‘I am to return with you immediately.’

  Hastily, Huy washed and scented himself. Psaro helped him make up his face and combed his hair. Horemheb had sent a litter with Huy’s body-servant and in it they set off to cover the short distance to the governor’s mansion.

  Huy wondered if they would be met by Kamose, but the governor was nowhere to be seen. Instead, they were conducted straight to the suite of plain rooms looking towards the River where the General was lodging. Huy was ushered into a low, dark room dominated by a massive table at which Horemheb sat.

  ‘I remember you,’ said the General. ‘It has been long.’

  ‘In truth, time passes.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I have some information.’

  ‘Many people do.’ Horemheb looked at him. ‘Ay is dying. There is no heir.’

  ‘This is something you must be aware of before you travel south.’

  Horemheb’s look became keener. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Ask Kamose for the accounts of the slaving transactions.’

  ‘Concerning the prisoners-of-war? Why should I trouble myself with that? The money will go to the king’s treasury.’