by Anton Gill
He left her, already planning how he would break her spirit. He had shown weakness. Now he would only show strength.
From her window, Mutnefert watched Rekhmire shambling across the courtyard of her house, his outline barely visible in the dim light cast by the oil-lamps there. Beyond, in the darkness, there was silence. She could hear only his feet scraping over the flagstones, and the tiny lapping sound of the River. By and by, there was just the sound of the water; and then, as the wind dropped, even the River seemed to sleep.
She bathed vigorously, changed into fresh clothes, and carefully reapplied her make-up, calling her first body-servant to position the orange and white cosmetic cone of perfume on her head. Then she settled down to wait for her other visitor.
‘I don’t know what they are doing.’ Aset was worried. ‘But above all, I don’t know why they are doing it. How is Rekhmire reacting?’
‘He hasn’t made any move,’ replied Huy. ‘But perhaps that is significant in itself. He hasn’t been to see her at all. It is as if he had broken with her entirely.’
‘No more regular visits?’
‘None.’
‘Then what is he doing?’
‘He works on the palace all the time. The new king is due here in fewer than twenty days.’
‘At least Amotju is recovered,’ said Aset, doubtfully.
‘More than recovered. But he still won’t talk to me?’
Aset said no with her head.
The news she had brought disturbed him. Instead of going to the Northern Capital himself, to accompany the new pharaoh south, Amotju had sent his wife as his deputy. The gifts he sent with her would more than excuse his absence, together with his recent severe illness, which was known throughout the city; but they hardly explained it. His behaviour since had been even less easy to understand.
‘Taheb left three days ago. Amotju suggested that I go with her too but I said no. Taheb and I do not make good companions unless it is for an evening only and there are others present.’ Aset had smiled briefly, but instantly became serious again as she continued. ‘Since then my brother has allowed himself to be seen openly with Mutnefert twice. Openly. Despite the fact that she is a high priest’s official mistress.’
‘Is he declaring war?’
‘What else does it look like?’
‘I don’t understand. He was terrified of Rekhmire. He thought the priest had power over demons.’
‘Perhaps Mutnefert has greater power over him,’ Aset said with bitterness.
Huy thought for a moment. ‘Perhaps he imagines himself safe from Rekhmire for now. The priest will do nothing until after the pharaoh is installed here. That is the most important thing-the maintenance of the status quo. After that, Horemheb will resume actual control, and Rekhmire —’
‘Will do as he likes?’
‘Judiciously, yes. There are no demons, only men,’ Huy added, seeing doubt in her eyes. ‘And Rekhmire is a politician, not a madman.’
‘Are you sure there are no demons?’
Huy was not, but he still could not see their work. Demons, the gods and the undead were not the slaves of men, and did not operate rationally. And yet, he reflected, what was rational about Amotju’s behaviour? Wasn’t he tempting providence? Or had he suddenly gained power over Rekhmire in the form of some kind of information he could use against the priest? If so, from where had he got his information? There could only be one source.
‘But I can’t see Rekhmire confiding in Mutnefert. He confides in no one,’ said Aset.
‘What about Amotju?’
Aset laughed drily. ‘He probably tells her everything. You know what he’s like, and he’s worse when he’s drunk. Which is more and more frequently.’
‘Why doesn’t Taheb stop him?’
‘I’d like to know that too. It’s certainly not so that she can mother him.’
‘Have you tried?’
‘He doesn’t listen to me.’
Huy turned and looked out over the city. They were sitting in the upper room of his little house, and it had a slight height advantage over its neighbours, so that there was a view over the rooftops to the River and the Valley in the west, and to the yellow cliffs bordering the eastern horizon. He wondered how secure he was. There had been no more death threats, and perhaps he was justified in thinking that whoever had delivered them was now confident that they had scared him off. On the other hand, there was the question of earning a living, to do which he would be forced to break cover soon.
‘The sooner the better,’ laughed Aset when he voiced the thought to her. ‘Then you’ll be able to get rid of that beard. You look like a Hittite!’
The days passed quickly as the Southern Capital readied itself to receive its new ruler — the first to take residence since the death of Nebmare Amenophis III, eighteen years earlier. The Black Land had never, in two thousand years, known such turmoil, and people in the cities were troubled. On the land, nothing had changed, and many had not noticed the changes. Years in this country were like days in others. Held at the centre of the world by deserts to the west and east, seas to the north and east, and an unknown and limitless forest to the south, the Black Land still basked in the knowledge that for two millennia its power had been uncontested and unshaken. Even the disgrace of the reign of the mad king, Akhenaten, which had brought shame to the country and the loss of the northern empire, had not brought the threat of ruin to the heartlands. Now, there was a new edict. Horemheb, through the new king, had declared the speaking of Akhenaten’s name unlawful. Everywhere, masons were busy cutting it from monuments.
In the midst of this, however, Huy had little opportunity to indulge the sadness which he might well have felt as the ideals which he had supported and believed in vanished. He had to focus his attention on surviving here and now, however much his innermost thoughts might have yearned for a new country, where he could imagine transplanting the seeds of the enlightened thinking of his old king. Instead, he concentrated his attention on Rekhmire, who continued his administration of the temple work with apparently total single-mindedness.
He saw less of Aset, missed her, and hoped that she missed him; though it was for her own safety that he insisted that their meetings were infrequent. But sometimes she arrived unexpectedly, and then he was glad.
‘There is news,’ she said. It was urgent. They had barely greeted each other. ‘It is Mutnefert.’
Huy was immediately alert. ‘Is she dead?’
‘No, but she has been threatened.’
‘It was unlikely that she could continue as she has without so being. How did you find out?’
‘Amotju told me.’
‘Amotju?’
‘Yes. He seeks your help again.’
‘But you haven’t told him where I am?’
‘No.’ Since he had gone into hiding, Aset had been the only one to know of his whereabouts. ‘He was simply regretting that he had angered you, now that he needs you to help Mutnefert. Of course he believes that you are still in the city — or rather, hopes that you are.’
‘If he cared about Mutnefert’s safety, why did he allow himself to be seen with her publicly?’
‘Perhaps that is something you can ask her.’
‘What do you mean?’
Aset opened a small linen bag at her waist and from it drew a stone scarab — a plain thing, roughly carved in limestone. She handed it to him and he drew in his breath as he took it, and read the simple inscription on it.
‘This is the second that she has received. It was she who asked for your help.’
‘There has been nothing else?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Where is she?’
‘At her house. She wants to see you.’
Huy looked at Aset. She did not return his gaze, and he could not read her face.
Mutnefert received him in the same room as she had before. She was dressed in a plain white tunic that fell straight from the shoulders to the feet, but which was
gathered at the waist with a plaited coloured leather cord, attached with a silver buckle. Huy noted that it was silver, not gold. Nothing vulgar for Mutnefert. She greeted him warmly, even in her visible distress neglecting none of the social niceties instilled in her, offering wine and food before any other topic was broached.
She was taller and more graceful than Aset, Huy noticed, but this time he was more aware of a certain distance — or, perhaps more accurately, absence in her manner. It was as if a part of her sat secure within the personality she showed to the world, keeping its own secret, its own counsel, even at a time like this.
There was no mistaking her agitation, however. Her body and her hands were restless, having none of the repose which she had conveyed at their previous meeting. She looked at him with frank appeal in her eyes.
‘It is good of you to come,’ she began.
‘I am glad to. But I do not know if I can help.’
She flashed a look at him. ‘If you cannot, no one can.’ Huy spread his hands. ‘Do you have the other scarab?’ She went to a small chest in the corner of the room and produced it. It was more or less identical to the one Aset had shown him, and to the one he had found himself outside the door of his room on the night he’d discovered Ani’s body. It told him nothing new.
‘Have there been any more threats?’
‘No. But I am very afraid. I am sure that I am being watched.’
‘Where?’
‘Everywhere. Here…Wherever I go.’
‘Have you any idea who it might be? One of the house-servants?’
‘I have very few, and they have all been with me for a long time. I do not think one of them could have been suborned.’
‘Then who?’
She hesitated, though clearly on the point of answering. ‘You can treat me with confidence,’ said Huy. ‘Anubis could not keep a secret better.’
‘Do you believe in the gods?’
This question caught Huy. It was not one he had expected from Mutnefert, whom he knew to be intelligent, but took to be conventional. In her beliefs, at least.
‘Surely we all do,’ he replied, and was rewarded by a frankly disbelieving, but still warm, smile.
‘I haven’t answered your question,’ she said.
‘You can always say, “I don’t know.”’
She looked down, rolling the scarab from hand to hand. ‘I am Rekhmire’s official mistress. But you know I am also the lover of your friend Amotju.’
‘You kept it secret, at least from the world in general, for so long. Why have you tempted providence now?’
She looked at him: ‘Do not tell Amotju what I am about to tell you; I begged him to keep it still a secret, but he wanted to dare Rekhmire, to make him do something he’d regret, to bring him down. It was my fault. I told him that I wanted to leave the priest, to get away from him for good.’
‘That surely is not reason enough?’
She lowered her head. Huy admired the delicate arch of her neck above the simple silver and turquoise collar she wore.
‘When I first came here, I had a position. The town was strong, it was the capital of all the Black Land. Although I was partly foreign, that did not matter. The king’s own parents-in-law came from my father’s country too. I had married an Egyptian. My husband was high in the administration of Shemau. Then, well, you know: Neferkheprure Amenophis — Ahkenaten, I mean — moved the capital north, and this city started to crumble. My husband lost his power, and died soon after. He was not a politician. Only people like Amotju’s father, who could move with the times, flourished. Rekhmire comforted me. He was an outcast, like me, but stronger. It was a long time before I realised that he expected to be repaid for his kindness, and then it was too late.’
‘But you kept your independence of him?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you needed his protection to survive?’
The head sank lower. ‘Yes.’
Huy said, ‘No one is going to blame you for wanting to survive.’
‘I would feel more gratitude towards him, but —’ she faltered. ‘The man is a beast. He is worse in his appetites than Set. Now that I no longer need his protection, I want to be rid of him,’ she concluded, in a firmer voice.
‘So that you went out openly with Amotju to challenge Rekhmire’s pride. You hoped he would do something sudden, rash, something violent, perhaps, which would bring about his ruin.’
‘Yes.’ She looked at him defiantly now.
‘What made you think that he would? You know him. You know that if he was a man to give in to his feelings he would never have risen as high as he has.’
‘He knew I wanted to leave him, but he did not know why, or for whom. The fear of losing me made him love me.’ Huy fell silent in the face of this. ‘What did you expect him to do?’
‘It was Amotju’s idea.’ She spoke in a more controlled voice, though its tone was sullen. ‘After what he had already experienced at Rekhmire’s hands, simply as a result of political rivalry, he expected to draw the fire for this. He had prepared for it.’
‘But Rekhmire is powerful enough to make his attack through intermediaries. He would never allow a crime to be traceable to him.’ Huy still could not understand what had, in any case, brought about Amotju’s change of heart. Whatever had happened to him during the period of his disappearance, he had been terrified by it.
‘Amotju has introduced a spy into Rekhmire’s household as a body-servant.’
‘You will need more than one witness to condemn Rekhmire.’
‘The man also reports to Horemheb.’
Huy breathed quietly.
‘Amotju was appalled at his experience in the afterlife. If Rekhmire has the power to send him there to be tortured into acquiescence, then Amotju must choose: either to give in or to destroy his destroyer. Rekhmire may be able to command demons; but he is himself a man.’
He reflected on how effectively Mutnefert had been working on his friend. Such a line of thought was certainly beyond Amotju. He looked at the woman with new admiration, wondering at the same time about the developments which would undoubtedly occur when Taheb returned. It was inconceivable that Taheb had not left servants behind who would report to her what was going on in her absence. Was Amotju thinking about the same thing, or had the initiative passed from his hands altogether?
‘But where does the spy come from?’ he asked.
‘You expect to be well trusted,’ she said.
‘You have trusted me too much already, by telling me all this.’
‘He was in my late husband’s service.’
Huy stood up.
‘Are you leaving?’
‘There is nothing I can do for you,’ said Huy, simply. He was feeling outclassed and out of his depth. He was also disappointed. Rent was due on his house and there was the question of food and drink.
‘But there is! You must find out — please — who sent me these.’ She held up the scarab.
‘But you know.’
‘And who is shadowing me?’
‘But you know.’
‘But it must be confirmed. And stopped. And we have so few friends.’
‘Your man in place with Rekhmire is in a better position —’
‘But he cannot manage alone. He will help you. I’m frightened; and I know that Amotju trusts you more than anyone.’
She came close to him and he smelt the delicious odour of her perfume. Out of the corner of his eye he discerned a slight movement in another part of the room. The little red-faced monkey had appeared, and was scrambling to its favourite spot among the heap of cushions on the couch.
As he came away from the house, Huy wondered about the extent of Mutnefert’s fear. He had not asked if Amotju would see him, but decided to risk calling on his friend. He crossed the city at dusk, assuming that Amotju would have returned to his house from inspecting his barges at that time, and in the hope of intercepting him before any intended visit to Mutnefert. He wanted to ask if the inves
tigation into the death of Ani, from which he had been excluded, had borne any fruit, and he wanted to assess his friend’s state of mind for himself. Before he had left her, Mutnefert had told Huy that she knew Amotju would be pleased to see him again, and that only pride stood in the way of his making the first move. Huy himself had long since dispensed with pride, but bringing the news of his acceptance of Mutnefert’s request for help gave him the excuse he needed.
Shortly before reaching the house, he turned the corner of an empty street and found himself suddenly, inexplicably falling, in complete silence and utter darkness. The shock had been too great for him to feel anything but calm curiosity: who had dug this mighty pit, and why? And why, too, did he have the sensation of falling far more slowly than he would have in the ordinary course of nature, pulled towards the earth by the power of its own embrace? It seemed indeed as if some of the time he was not falling at all, but floating. He was still asking himself questions when the silence and the darkness swallowed him entirely.
EIGHT
The darkness and the silence continued, and so absolute were they that even when he became aware of them again his heart would not allow him to admit that he was…conscious.
Conscious. The word was a mockery of his condition. It was so dark that he could not see his limbs. He could not see the closest parts of him: his shoulder, his chest. He did not even know whether he was standing or lying. There was no sensation of ground beneath him; only the knowledge that he had stopped falling, or floating.
There were his eyes. He was aware that they were open. He could feel the tiny mechanism of his eyelids opening and shutting. When they were shut, his eyes felt protected. When they were open, they did not. There was no other difference. The darkness forced itself on to the surface of his eyes and if he had not felt so curiously relaxed he might have wanted to scream in panic at the suffocation of the light. He wondered how he could be so certain that his eyes were still capable of vision; how he, without more knowledge, could distinguish in his heart between the outer darkness he was in and the inner darkness which was blindness. His hand went towards the amulet he wore, the udjat Eye of Horus, sacrificed in the god’s fight with Set, and redeemed for Man. Then his hand stopped. He wasn’t sure if it was his hand, or something else moving.
