City of Lies

by Anton Gill

  Once on board, she felt better, though she closed Huy out of her heart as she watched the Southern Capital fade into a shimmering heat haze. These thoughts were her own, and the author of her regrets – those that she still had – was the last person she wanted to share such privacy with. Huy, standing next to her, felt for the first time since they had met that there was a wall between them. He looked at the red outline of the city across the green water, slowly but surely rising up the huge steps cut into it from the bank to measure its height. How few steps were needed to indicate the difference between drought and flood, famine and harvest: only two or three. The water was rising more slowly now, and settling dangerously below the limit needed. A bad flood had not been known since Nebpetyre Amosis took the throne two hundred and fifty cycles of the seasons before. But Ay was a careful man – his merit was in being as careful for his people as he was for himself. Huy thought that there may not just have been moral disinterest in this: a man who neglects his donkey, and starves and beats it, is in the end the loser by his actions. Ay was too good an economist not to realise that a neglected and abused people would never repay its leader. The granaries would be full. Ay would be praised, and he would keep the thing most precious to him, his power, without needing to fight for it more than was absolutely necessary.

  They were sailing on one of the small, wide freighters which rode high in the water and only carried light loads and a few passengers. For the moment, Huy and Senseneb were the only ones. They put in nightly at little fire lit villages where the whitewash of the buildings looked tired at this time of year, and the farmland brown, in anticipation of the resurrection – the new flight of the benben bird – that the inundation would bring. Then the fields would be green again and the houses sparkle amidst them. Each night there was dancing and a feast, though Huy noticed that the farmers were careful this year: there was plenty of shemshemet of course, but the bread offered was from barley flour, not wheat, and the meat was goat when it was there at all – more often they were given slabbed fish. Huy, who liked food, looked forward to their arrival in Soleb, when he hoped at least to be able to order ferik and honey-cakes at their inn.

  They passed many boats on their way south. Some were heading as far downstream as the Great Port, Peru-nefer, where their cargoes of granite, amethyst, sandstone and gold would be transferred to sea-going ships bound for the lands beyond the Great Green. Senseneb watched those headed for the Southern Capital with longing.

  The boat made good way, but it was not as large or as fast as the Khepri, and at times the voyage seemed unending. The rising water helped them over the first cataract, but by the second the desert cliffs had begun to close in on the River, and the freight and luggage on board was shifted to lighten the prow. The helmsman leant on his steering oar, his eye firmly fixed on the man in the bow, who craned forward looking for the shoals, waving directions aft and occasionally shouting them. Once the keel less hull ground along sand. Once the whole boat all but slewed round, and the boom swung, so that two more boatmen had to throw themselves against the steering oar to help the helmsman set her head upriver again, and at last they were in calm water again.

  The sun beat down hard on them as the land grew redder and more unkind. Huy removed the wig that he had taken to wearing since becoming an official and wrapped a linen turban round his head like the boatmen did to protect it from the sun. Senseneb remained for most of the time under the cover of the awning that had been set up for them amidships. It was difficult to read as they travelled and she spent most of her time watching the River as they passed. Between the white hamlets perched on their little hills raised over the flood level, the banks revealed river horse wallowing among the reeds, snorting and lumbering, watching the boat with wary eyes – often all you could see of them above the surface apart from their raised nostrils. On the shore wherever it shelved to the water, crocodiles basked, the Children of Sobek, immobile as statues.

  As the days passed they all became leaner and browner. Then eventually, on the west bank and at an eastward bend of the River, they saw a brown city crouching.

  ‘Soleb,’ said Huy.

  ‘How long will we stay here?’

  ‘A night.’

  ‘That sounds enough.’ They looked at each other.

  ‘Soleb is not Meroe.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  Soleb was a trading town about halfway to their destination. It was small and busy, but of no great account. There was a high crime rate, because it was a haunt of smugglers, and the reach of the River on which it rested was a bad one for pirates, though General Horemheb had established a garrison here now and the soldiers were paid well enough to ensure that they did not connive at the activities of the local criminals.

  Though small, Soleb was a busy place. Its temples were far less grand than those of the Southern Capital, but it was recognisably a Black Land city, on its man-made hill of debris which raised it above the highest possible level of the Flood, with its two main intersecting roads, one running from west to east, and the other from south to north. Beyond it, its farms were smaller and more loosely spaced than those further north. The harbour was cluttered with shipping, and there were many small open craft with one triangular sail to ferry goods to and from the larger vessels that anchored off in the main stream of the River.

  Above all, Soleb was a frontier town. You could see it in in the people, who were leaner and darker. Beyond Soleb lay the domain of UatUat, and beyond that, Kush.

  They found the inn a short way along the main west-east road. It was a low building whose narrow tamarisk door stood open and led to a shady courtyard where several other travellers were eating and drinking. There were many inns in the street, and they were all busy, but the people were subdued as the flood water refused to rise further.

  They washed, oiled themselves, and ate, before setting off to walk in the town. Neither Huy nor Senseneb liked the forced inactivity of the voyage and they were both edgy. There was little to see in the town and for a time they were followed by a shaven priest who, from his eyes, did not seem to have within him a true marriage of the Eight Elements. He leered at Senseneb, who was blessed and cursed with those things which most men thought beautiful: firm breasts, strong buttocks, and long legs. At last he disappeared into a small temple of Khnum at the edge of the city.

  ‘This is not Meroe,’ repeated Huy.

  ‘There is not one thing that can be done that cannot be undone,’ replied Senseneb, trying to keep her voice light. If he was changing his heart he would not show it. He was probably trying to reassure her.

  ‘Except the making of life and the making of death,’ replied Huy, completing the proverb she had started.

  At the end of every street you could see the red desert land stretching away beyond the town. Each street was cluttered with people, and plodding donkeys. Dogs and cats dozed in pools of sunlight, and from one doorway a chained baboon leapt and snapped at them. The air was busy with voices and shouting.

  Huy did not know whether he had caught a sense of unease from Reniqer, but as they walked a feeling grew in him that they were being watched. He looked around idly at first, wondering if they had picked up the half-witted priest again, but he seemed to have disappeared completely. Most of the people in the street were traders and shoppers of one kind or another. Lean-limbed Kushites with stick-like legs protruding from bright blankets slung across their bodies picked their feet up high as they walked from stall to stall, where dates, figs, beans, nebes berries and palm nuts were piled for sale. The shopkeepers were mainly men of UatUat, with darker skins than the Black Landers and rounder features. The Black Landers themselves were dressed simply, the men in white kilts, the women in looser dresses than were worn in the Southern Capital, and less richly decorated. Most wore reed sandals which must have worn out quickly on the stony ground, for there were sellers of sandals at every street corner. There were soldiers in the crowd, walking in small groups, looking lonely and bewildered off-duty. Hor
emheb had drafted in northerners to reduce further any risk of conspiracy.

  ‘Walk on a bit,’ said Huy.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I think I’ve seen someone I know.’

  Senseneb turned to him. ‘What is it really? You are worried.’

  ‘Yes. But not much.’ He stroked her cheek. ‘Please.’

  She looked at him. ‘It was not just about Meroe that you talked with Reniqer, was it?’

  Huy looked down.

  ‘You don’t own the street,’ said a fat woman, jostling past. ‘Have your chat somewhere else.’ She went on her way, grumbling.

  ‘What did you talk about?’ asked Senseneb again.

  ‘I will tell you. Not here. Look! We are in the middle of the street.’ As he spoke, they had to step to one side to avoid a tiny man, wrinkled as a carob bean, who was sweeping everyone aside as he pushed a huge and listing pile of pomegranates by on a handcart which appeared to be held together by nothing so much as his faith.

  Ra had begun his slow descent to the western horizon, and the light grew warmer and more intense as the shadows began to lengthen.

  ‘It is almost certainly nothing,’ said Huy, reluctantly, feeling like a schoolboy. What did it matter that he wanted to help Tascherit and Ankhsi, if they really wanted his help? She should be happy that he was doing so. Perhaps she would be. It would just be this one time. He would not go back to solving problems for a living. He had had enough of that!

  ‘Tell me,’ she said, getting angry.

  She was like a cheetah of the south, and he saw challenge in her eyes and he realised that he desired her, strongly and at once, as his own anger rose. He did not understand this strange doubling in his heart but now he had no time to try, because his eye had flashed on a movement in the crowd behind her shoulder – the twitch of a coat worn by someone moving swiftly out of sight, but not quickly enough, and he knew that he had been right.

  ‘I will,’ he said. He took both of her arms above the elbow and squeezed them quickly, looking at her, then slipped past her into the throng.

  He had fixed the point where he had seen the man disappear and arrived to find that it was the entrance to an alleyway that led downhill and presumably out of the town. The moment he had entered it, the hubbub of the main street was shut off as if someone had closed a door on it, and the cool of the narrow passage hit him with almost as much force as if he had plunged into water. The walls which contained it were blind, without so much as a window or doorway, and too high and smooth to climb. It made several sharp twists as he followed it, but there were no turnings off it. Huy went on cautiously. It would not be unlikely to find someone’s workshop down such an alley as this, guarded by a dog which would not necessarily be tied up. But he had heard no barking ahead of him and he knew he was close on the heels of his quarry.

  His main fear was that the passage would simply lead to a narrow gap in the town wall – perhaps opening into a path to a rubbish dump or a midden – but eventually it ended in a cramped dark square with heavy. closed doors in each side wall. Standing in the middle of it, looking apologetic, was a tall young man with a sagging belly whom Huy recognised, though he could not place him.

  ‘They’re all locked,’ said the man, looking at Huy nervously.

  Huy grabbed him by the tunic and shoved him hard against the wall.

  ‘Wait!’ cried the man. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  The man’s shoulders slumped. ‘I’m a scribe like you. Let me go.’

  Huy knew that he was frightened, and could see that although he had the advantage of height, he was flabby, like most scribes – who indeed held muscle in scorn, regarding it as the mark of a labourer. If it came to a fight, Huy would win. But the man was light on his feet and would have to be watched.

  He recognised him now, too. Pinhasy was a scribe in Kenna’s office – a kind of assistant’s assistant to Ay’s Chief secretary.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he repeated, releasing his hold and speaking more gently. Pinhasy, with his huge inky hands and apologetic look, didn’t seem to pose much of a threat.

  ‘I just happened to be here,’ replied the junior scribe with a touch of bravado.

  ‘Have they transferred you, or are you on leave?’

  The young man looked confused. ‘No, I – ’

  ‘Come on, Pinhasy.’

  The man’s expression changed from wavering arrogance to one of anxiety. ‘You mustn’t report this. Please. Whatever you do.’

  ‘Who would I report it to? And what?’

  The man seemed to crumple completely. ‘Can we get out of here? I’m lost.’ He seemed miserable and dejected. he looked mournfully round at the gloomy yard they stood in.

  ‘No,’ said Huy.

  ‘All right. Kenna sent me here ahead of you.’

  ‘On the king’s orders?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Pinhasy sulkily. ‘I suppose so.’

  Huy wondered what on earth had made Ay select this man. Perhaps he had left the choice to Kenna, who had opted for his most dispensable man. This wasn’t flattering to Huy, but at least it put the importance of Pinhasy’s mission, whatever it was, into proportion.

  ‘Why did they send you here?’

  ‘They wanted to be sure you would arrive. I was to report back as soon as you left here.’

  Huy relaxed. ‘Well, you still can. I won’t tell them I flushed you out.’

  The gratitude on Pinhasy’s face was pathetic. ‘It could mean promotion for me.’

  ‘I wish you joy of it. But why were they so keen to make sure I was leaving? I’ve been meaning to for long enough.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Pinhasy considered. ‘Perhaps they thought you’d double back.’

  ‘That had occurred to me,’ replied Huy without troubling to hide his sarcasm. ‘But what for?’ Now he was thinking of Reniqer.

  Pinhasy spread his hands. ‘Perhaps they thought you’d double back and go north.’

  ‘What? To Horemheb?’

  ‘They say your son is there.’

  Huy looked troubled. ‘Yes he is. But he is a stranger to me now.’ He felt the familiar pull at his heart as he said this. He had loved his child.

  He saw that Pinhasy was looking at him uncomprehendingly. ‘I have no interest in their politics or their battles,’ he told the scribe. ‘I am going to the south because of that. I am going to find a small oasis and cultivate vines. I will produce the best wine the Black Land has ever tasted.’ He saw that Pinhasy believed at least the second part of what he had said, though his heart acknowledged that the fantasy about vineyards was closer to the truth than his first statement. The doubts which always sat at the corners of his heart and which had tormented him all his life were stirring and he knew it. Perhaps if he really could find a vineyard which he could develop... His idea of farming was hardly more than that – he had left because he had had to make something happen. Not that anyone but he would care about that. Except Senseneb of course; but he had not taken her from the Southern Capital against her will.

  ‘You can tell them that,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t say I spoke to you. You aren’t supposed to know about me.’

  ‘Then say nothing. Tomorrow I am going on to Kerma. Then Napata, then Meroe. But I expect Ay has someone like you in each city. He could have saved himself the trouble.’

  ‘I think he wanted to be sure you were truly going south. You would not have come this far if you had intended to turn back.’

  ‘And if I had turned back? Where would that have left you?’

  Pinhasy had not thought of that. Now it dawned on him that he was simply a long-stop. Huy felt almost sorry for him as he watched his self-importance diminish.

  ‘Never mind. You can report back. I hope you get your promotion.’ Privately he thought, the more fools like you there are in the administration, the easier my life will be. But he did not believe Pinhasy would rise high.

  More im
portant was Ay’s continuing interest in him, even at this low level. Huy acknowledged that he had been foolish to underestimate it. Huy turned it over in his heart as he left Pinhasy at the entrance to the alley. The sun had dipped in the sky and the street was emptier now, and cooler. he watched the young scribe make his way towards the garrison. It would be too late today to send a messenger pigeon downriver. He thought for a moment about the birds, carrying Pinhasy’s note by relays from garrison to garrison back to Kenna. How long would it take? Not that it really mattered. It was then that the real thought struck him.

  What if they had sent someone as inept as Pinhasy to Soleb deliberately, knowing that Huy could not help but discover him? And if that were true, what was Pinhasy a cover for?

  Huy decided that the time to lower his guard had not come yet. But he was out of practice. The State Archive for Barley Production had made him duller than he’d suspected.

  At least he was able to tell Senseneb about Reniqer’s secret mission to him without getting into another row. She took it well, and accepted that it was a request he could hardly refuse.

  ‘You should have told me of it before.’

  ‘I could not. It would not have been safe. Even here Ay sent a man to shadow me.’ Huy decided not to enlarge on his conversation with Pinhasy. ‘In any case,’ he added, ‘it may be nothing.’

  ‘We do not know what is happening anywhere while we are on the River. There may have been more accidents.’

  ‘If anything serious had happened in Meroe, we would have heard about it here.’

  ‘As the dowager-queen’s physician elect, I hope nothing has happened to her. I want that job.’

  Huy looked at her and smiled. ‘Sometimes I wonder what sits in your heart.’

  ‘Look! She is a friend now. If I joke it is because I am nervous.’

  ‘I know.’

  They were sitting in their narrow room drinking wine after dinner. It had been a good dinner. Quail and pigeon with wheat bread and gebna cheese. As always, the wine which he had drunk too heavily relaxed him. The world was ruled by Seth, and to make it bearable for man, the other gods had sent him the grape for wine and barley and wheat for beer.