by Anton Gill
‘Senseneb,’ he said, feeling his own heart beat faster; but the sympathy they had for each other, which enabled them to talk to each other without words, made things easier now. Her look was a mixture of anticipation and delighted anxiety, and he was sure that his face wore the same expression.
‘Yes?’
He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. ‘I wish to exchange the Words.’
She smiled, but it seemed to her that had entered a dream.
‘You are certain?’
‘Yes.’
He took her hands. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that Hapu had looked up. It was a good as done.
She called Hapu over. The old man’s face was stern, but softened as he listened. He knew that her father would have been happy to know she had made such a marriage, and his face showed the honour he felt at witnessing it. But he said:
‘Will you draw up papers of agreement?’
‘Of course,’ said Huy.
‘Who will draw them?’
‘There are scribes here.’
‘We must make sure of a good one.’ Hapu apparently considered that by this he had done his duty, and took a step back.
At the table on the terrace, Psaro looked over curiously. He watched as Huy and Senseneb joined hands facing each other in the sunlit garden. The two ro-geese patrolled the edge of the pool, while the puppies wrestled each other, crashing into bushes. Of the kittens there was no sign – they were dozing in whatever corners cats find to hide.
‘...until the egret becomes black and the raven white, until the mountains rise up and walk, and water flows uphill...’
Psaro could not make out the rest of what they said.
It was time, Huy thought, that he met Takhana. The commission given him by Ankhsi to find out who was behind the plot to kill her was more than enough excuse for an interview, though he found that getting one was not as easy as it should have been.
‘My sister knows nothing,’ said Tascherit, flatly.
‘Even so she lives here, she may have some idea...’
‘She is married to the most powerful merchant in all the south.’
‘All the more reason...’
Tascherit looked at him almost fiercely. ‘I do not want her drawn into this unnecessarily. Nesptah is a powerful man. Many people here depend on him. He would not want to attract unwelcome attention.’
‘Surely attention from one who seeks to find out who has been trying to kill your wife and the pharaoh’s granddaughter could not be described as unwelcome?’ retorted Huy crisply.
‘I do not want more of my family put at risk,’ said Tascherit, sullenly.
‘Why should they be? It is obviously Ankhesenamun who is the target.’
‘You are a stranger here. You do not understand our ways.’
Huy was exasperated. ‘Are your ways not those of the Black Land? Has not your own wife appointed me? Or do you think now that the stabbing, too, was an accident?’
‘I am sure that we could get to the bottom of this without your help!’
Huy looked at him: ‘Who else knows who Imuthes really is?’
Tascherit returned the look but there was something evasive behind his eyes.
‘No one.’
‘You have not even told your close family?’
Tascherit looked away. ‘Why should I? It is a question of great security.’ He relented a little. ‘I love the boy. I would not wish him to come to harm,’
‘Somebody does.’
‘The threat is not from within this town!’
Huy looked away. They were once again on the roof of the mansion, and the spotless houses of Meroe were spread out beneath him. A tight little community nestling under the protection of its garrisons, and doubly protected by its value to all around as a trade centre. It positively gleamed. It was indeed an adornment to the pschent crown. Still, there remained within Huy the uneasy feeling that under the makeup he might find an ugly and sick old woman. He didn’t want to acknowledge the feeling. It was not in his interests to; but the thought of the turmoil beneath the surface, of the demons under the sand, remained lodged in a corner of his heart.
‘Do you walk in truth with your brother-in-law?’ he asked. He knew that Tascherit’s pay was great, but this mansion would have required the income of a nomarch, not a Military Governor, to keep it going.
‘We understand one another.’
‘It was fortunate for him to marry into such a family as yours.’
‘He was married to my sister before I married Ankhsi. It was arranged by my father before he died. Nesptah and he were friends.’
‘But he married for love?’ Huy watched to see if the barb would hit home. It did. The implication that Nesptah could afford to marry a woman who would not much enhance his fortune had not been lost on the Governor. But perhaps position mattered more to the merchant.
‘What was your father?’
‘He was Viceroy of Napata.’
Huy nodded. ‘I thought so.’ In truth, the information was new to him, but he might – and should – have guessed. Things were beginning to grow into each other. ‘But you did not succeed him?’
Tascherit’s knuckles whitened on the balustrade. ‘I am a soldier. I gained rank under Horemheb. I was awarded the plumes and the shebu collar. Besides, the appointment of Viceroy lies in the hands of the king.’
‘Nevertheless you have accomplished much.’
‘I do not need your praise, old man.’
Huy considered the words. Old man. It was partially true: he was reaching an age when he should have a worthy past to look back on. And the expression was one of respect. Except that it had not sounded like that in Tascherit’s mouth. Why had Ankhsi married him? He tried to call into his heart pictures of what their life had been like here: the handsome, provincial soldier and the former queen of the Black Land, seeking security for her son and dreaming of a future when he would sit on the Golden Chair and she would grind the killers of her husband and the would-be destroyers of her line in the dust. What had they talked about to each other – how had she filled her days until Samut had presented her with a plan that looked like working? And – perhaps most important of all – what was Tascherit’s reaction to that plan? He must know of it. Or did he?
Huy shifted his feet in his sandals to loosen the sand that had accumulated there. It was a heavy day and his tunic stuck to him. The wind had dried out his skin and his eyes felt caked with rime. Beyond the town, the River rolled by, as heavy as the day, pregnant with the rich silt it was bringing to the Black Land. The water was almost up to the town walls now, and the outer jetties of the harbour were covered. Huy thought of the flooded land downriver, of the fields sleeping under the water, ready to be reborn when the summer ended and it was the time of coming forth again. The farmers around here must be preoccupied with such thoughts too. The reassuring rota of the three seasons, the repetitive work that followed them, and the annual doubt over Hapy’s generosity – might his heart have attuned itself to all that?
‘When shall I see Takhana?’ he asked the Governor.
‘You had better ask her steward.’
‘I will go there now.’
Tascherit had not turned to Huy throughout their last short exchange, but remained with his hands on the balustrade that ran round the roof, looking out over the garrisons. There was no sign of movement from them at this dead time of day. If Tascherit was not part of the conspiracy, how would a mutiny of the troops be coordinated? They would have to rally behind someone.
‘It is too soon,’ said Tascherit. ‘It is still the hour of sleep.’
‘If she is not yet awake, I will wait.’ Huy had no intention of letting Tascherit get a message to his sister before he arrived.
‘Go then.’ Tascherit had not turned round and seemed to slump on the balustrade, his body filled with a sudden lassitude. Huy noticed a slackness in the muscles, and a looseness in the paunch that befitted a much older man.
Without speaking again, he set off down the steps, almost invisible in the black shadow cast by the bright light.
He wished he could have taken the time to change his clothes and bathe, and he made himself walk slowly through the baking and deserted town. It was as if no one lived here, as if the place had been built as an offering to the gods. At home there was always some activity, even at this dead time, he thought, as his sandals crunched dully on the packed-mud street floor, over which the wind had blown a light coating of sand. he caught himself out. This was home now. He was privileged. He could be grateful to the gods and the king. How many Black Landers ever even saw another part of the country than that in which they had been born?
It was not far from the Governor’s mansion to Nesptah’s house. The building stood back from the street behind a high white wall in which a narrow door painted dark red opened into the street. As he approached the door, Huy noticed a black scorpion race across the street and bustle to safety under a stone. How appropriate, he thought, to see one of Selket’s children in this hour dominated by the fierceness of the sun’s heat. Whether the omen was of deeper significance his heart did not enquire.
He knocked on the door with the stick that hung by it, and waited. The noise had sounded dull and heavy in the thick air, and he wondered if anyone would come to answer it at all. Nobody visited at this hour, and even the attendants would expect to be asleep. But at last he heard the rasp of a bolt being drawn on the other side, and a slim, cool, elegant face appeared in the fraction of space the door had opened.
Huy, who felt hotter and dustier than ever, told the man his errand. The face regarded him for a moment with bright dark eyes. Nothing in the expression changed. It was like a painted face, like the face on a mummy. Then the eyes were lowered and the door drawn fully open.
Huy stepped onto a cool limestone dais and from it down two steps into a courtyard dark from the shadows of the dom palms planted in it. The servant was better dressed than Huy, even wearing leather sandals, and the scribe regretted the palace clothes he had left behind. The benches in the little garden – for that was what the courtyard amounted to – were all of expensive white limestone, massively carved. Water flowed ceaselessly from a conduit into a plain granite tank, where decorative fishes swam. The walls were painted plain white, but they glowed so freshly that Huy guessed a new coat was applied daily, and the top was decorated with a frieze of lapis lazuli inlay. Everything he could see betokened wealth of a kind he had not seen outside the Palace Compound, and had not expected to see anywhere outside the Southern Capital.
The servant had motioned him to a seat and disappeared, but soon returned with a companion, bringing water and towels. Huy refreshed himself with their help, and then was made to wait again, cleaner and feeling less stupid, but now with a sense of apprehension. He knew that he was already being watched. He tried to show no signs of nervousness or impatience. He sat on the bench as if he owned it, as if the house he sat in were his. Wine was brought to him in glassware that had perhaps too much gold worked around the rims of the beakers for perfect taste, but the wine itself broke on his palate like a gift of Renenutet herself.
The sun moved over the courtyard and as it did so the shadows lengthened and the grateful shade increased. Flies buzzed drowsily in the warmth and settled on his arms, taking one short turn in the air and then resettling when he brushed them off. His own eyelids became heavy but he blinked hard and made himself sit erect. He was feeling a faint chill from the River by the time the first servant reappeared and gave him a scented towel to wipe his neck, eyes and hands. Huy then followed him into the house.
They crossed a long, low hall whose floor was polished stone and whose ceiling was supported with fifty slender square stone columns. It was dark and cool, but at its other end Huy could see another, inner courtyard where the last of the sunlight was brightly concentrated. As they approached, details of the place became clearer: there were more palms, smaller and lower, and ferns. Rugs that were the colour of the desert and carried designs Huy had never seen before were spread on the floor, and on them stood delicately carved chairs and tables made of the black wood of the far south, inlaid with gold and turquoise stones. There were murals on the walls showing tall men in white robes bearing all manner of food, animals and ring-ingots of precious metal to a couple seated on what looked very like thrones raised on a dais. All these Huy had barely time to glance at before his attention was focused on the woman who turned to greet him.
She was taller than he had thought she would be, after seeing her at Ankhsi’s dinner party, and she was dressed in a loose full robe tied under the breasts in the fashion of the south, leaving them exposed. Her breasts were not large, but proud and firm, the nipples only a shade darker than the skin; she had long legs and high buttocks; her feet were long too, and slender, but ended in square toes which were unused to being confined in sandals. The skin beneath her toenails and fingernails was indigo. She wore her hair tied with a simple headband. It was long and dark, but it was not as straight as that of most Black Landers and did not lie so flat. Her eyes and teeth were white flames in her face, which was darker than the faces of the Black Landers were; but the centres of her eyes were umber pools. Could she really be Tascherit’s sister?
Her look was neither welcoming nor curious; nor was it aggressive or frightened. It was challenging. He was reminded of the look he had seen in the face of a sand-coloured desert cat that had been brought to the Southern Capital by an embassy from the King of Elam when he was a boy. It had been exhibited in a wooden cage in the city square before going to join the menagerie in the Palace Compound. He had never forgotten the proud look of defiance which overlaid bewilderment. But any similarity ended there. Takhana’s was the face of a creature in control of her fate.
‘My house is honoured,’ she said, in a velvety voice that made sure that if any honour was to be conferred, she would be the one to do so.
Huy lowered his eyes. ‘I am honoured.’
‘We have not met properly before. It is unfortunate that we did not do so at my brother’s party of greeting. It was bad of my sister-in-law not to make you sufficiently known to me.’
‘Perhaps it is unfitting of me to call now, alone, before your husband has returned, but I have been in Meroe long enough, and to delay longer might, I thought, look discourteous. I have just come from your brother.’
She raised one eyebrow the breadth of a hair.
‘Did he suggest you came?’
‘No.’ Huy was not a man to be intimidated, but this woman, a head taller than he was, and full of fire, seemed to bear down on him like a Kheftyu ship might bear down on a swimmer. He told himself in his heart that she was the wife of a provincial businessman and the sister of a provincial soldier, nothing more. Big fish in small ponds often had more self-confidence than those who knew better, and that could bear them through many barriers, his heart told him; but this woman was a panther and he felt her power. Those who knew better were often the losers for their knowledge. He was about the begin the difficult task of explaining why he had come, wrapping himself in the remembered relics of his high official position under Ay, when he was interrupted by the arrival in the courtyard of another man who, glancing at Huy with superficial appraisal but otherwise scant interest, whispered something to Takhana. Takhana’s expression did not change, but she watched Huy as she listened. The man could not have provided a greater contrast to Takhana. He was pallid and plump and wore nothing but an afnet wig-cover and a plain pale blue kilt. Pendulous little breasts hung like uncooked grey loaves over a sweaty, jutting belly. His pale hazel eyes were the coldest Huy had ever seen.
Having delivered his message, the man left as unceremoniously as he had arrived. he did not look at Huy again.
‘You must excuse our ways here,’ said Takhana. ‘Usually we announce our visits before we make them.’
Huy took the rebuke as lightly as he could. ‘I meant no discourtesy.’
‘I am sur
e you didn’t. But now you must sit and tell me what your real errand is. Do you come from my sister-in-law?’
Huy looked at her, and was given a mirthless grin in return. ‘My brother has told me that Ankhsi has engaged you to find out who is trying to kill her.’
‘That is so.’
She looked away, bored. ‘Accidents.’
‘But not the third time. And a man was seen swimming away from the barge that nearly ran them down in the River.’
Takhana seated herself languidly on a bench covered with broad cushions covered with the same crude, vigorous designs as the rugs. She rested one arm on the back of the bench and another along her thigh as she drew up her legs. her look became softer. Following her invitation, Huy also sat down, opposite her. For one moment the silence between them was broken only by the gentle plashing of the little fountain. The same silent attendant who had greeted Huy when he arrived came up with wine and little honey cakes in a dish, which he served. As he did so he looked at Huy briefly, but Huy could not read the expression in his eyes. Could it be some kind of appeal?
‘I know that Ankhsi loves you and trusts you,’ said Takhana. ‘And there is no reason why you should not believe her. But you must understand two things. Ankhsi has changed since she came to live here; and this is not the Southern Capital.’ She paused and drank. Huy, listening, followed suit. The wine was deceptively light. He must drink with caution.
‘Here,’ continued Takhana, ‘we are at the very edge of the Black Land. Pharaoh’s law barely reaches us here. We survive because we make ourselves and the people around us rich – but there are many who resent that. There are many whose lives belong to this part of the world and who want it for their own.’
‘Wouldn’t that be reason enough to kill the Governor’s wife and son?’
She drew her legs up further. ‘It would be more reasonable to expect them to kill the Governor. Or me. Or Nesptah. At least it would make just as much sense. But no one has tried to kill any one of us.’ She looked at him.