by Anton Gill
Taheb said nothing.
‘I was groping in the dark; I had not begun to suspect Mutnefert, and I needed work. She approached me through Aset, who has no love for her, and even managed to convince her how much she needed my help. She spun me a story of non-existent death threats, and of being shadowed — perhaps by agents of a jealous Rekhmire; and at the same time she tried to assess the extent of my belief in the gods. She expressed cynicism in them, which, as a half-Mitannite, she could perhaps have done; but I noticed how casually she handled the scarabs on which the death threats had been inscribed. I do not know if I convinced her that I believed, but in any case the die was cast. She had made me break cover, and already her plan was laid. I was to be subjected to the same passage through hell as Amotju.’
‘What did she hope to achieve?’
‘She hoped to warn me off, finally, or to convince me of Rekhmire’s guilt. Either way, she would have been happy. In any case, events were not moving fast enough for her. The days left until the arrival of the new pharaoh were passing quickly: you would return, and with the installation of the king at the palace, Rekhmire would be in a position of almost unassailable power. She had to force the pace. She had to be free of Rekhmire, and the path of Amotju’s political ambition as she saw it had to be cleared. She was sure he would divorce you; after that, in time, she would, I am certain, have had you killed. Everything would then be as she wanted it.’
‘So she murdered Rekhmire.’
‘Yes.’
Taheb looked around her quiet courtyard and it seemed to her that she had never seen it before in her life. The house was still, for the sun had passed its zenith, and the shadows on the wall were deepening. She wondered where in the house Amotju was, what he was doing, what he was thinking.
‘Mutnefert had used Rekhmire’s old tomb as the scene for the journeys beyond life. We were drugged, and then it was simply a question of guiding the hallucinations we had. But she used the place as a storeroom, too. It was ideal; abandoned, at some distance from any other excavations, and yet close to the River; and Rekhmire had not sold the site to anyone else.’
‘How did she get him there?’
‘I don’t know. How would you have done it? Perhaps by pretending to give in — to show him her centre of operation, and so put herself completely in his power? He would have been flattered and relieved. Of course, she could not hope that he would come completely alone; but she had enough people to deal with Rekhmire and any bodyguard.’
‘So — poor Amenmose.’
‘Yes. He was doing his job. I suppose she felt she could not trust him. He must have put up quite a fight.’
‘Would she have been there?’ Taheb was intrigued by the details despite herself, and wondered if she would have been similarly capable.
‘I think so; she would have wanted to see that the job was done properly.
‘What is she doing now?’
‘Waiting for Amotju to tell her that he has spoken to you. Receiving the news of Rekhmire’s death with horror.’
‘What must we do?’
‘You must decide. I think we must tell Amotju everything now.’
But Amotju was nowhere to be found.
TWELVE
Why would he do this, Taheb kept asking herself as they hurried through the town. Why? Next to her, Huy remained silent. He was cursing himself for his amateurishness, for his inability to account for human behaviour, for his stupidity in underestimating his friend, and the power of his friend’s love.
They would know soon enough if his worst fears were justified. Hurrying on foot through the town, pushing past the late afternoon crowd, denser than usual on account of the celebrations due to the king’s arrival, they were hot and tired; unlikely partners called upon to make one last effort when they had assumed none to be necessary.
Taheb stumbled over a badly set flagstone and Huy reached out to support her arm. He was surprised at how strong she was.
‘Thank you.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Let’s just get on.’
They were held up for minutes as a procession of priests solemnly carrying wooden figures of Amun, together with his wife, Mut, and son, Khons, passed across their path to the music of sistra.
‘Could you be mistaken?’ asked Taheb, knowing that she was clutching at last hopes.
‘If he isn’t there,’ Huy replied, ‘I will be happy. But I cannot see where else he can have gone. I asked him to leave me alone with you to begin with, and to trust me. But of course he must have simply listened at a window. It would be the most natural thing in the world.’
‘How much can he have heard before he left?’
‘Enough to warn her. But if he had heard everything, I think his reaction would have been the same.’
Taheb was silent, hearing this, and Huy bit his lip. He had not wanted to hurt her by exposing the power of her husband’s love for a murderess; but who could possibly have predicted anything of the sort, he told himself. Who could have foreseen anything so unreasonable?
Their shadows danced across street walls dyed a deep yellow by the sunshine of the eleventh hour of day. A litter toiled past, moving with infinite slowness through the throng, its irritable occupant leaning out to shout at passers-by.
‘Will they still be there?’
‘He had a fifteen-minute start. He’ll have to explain to her. With luck they’ll still be there.’
‘What if she’s killed him?’ Taheb blurted out.
Huy was silent.
‘I cannot believe this is happening,’ said Taheb, more quietly.
They hurried on in silence, climbing a steep street which reached its peak after thirty paces and then descended again just as sharply. Around the comer and across a small square stood Mutnefert’s house. As they drew near, they unconsciously slackened their speed, trying to control their ragged breathing. Taheb felt curiously calm; Huy struggled to plan a strategy, and failed.
The door of the house stood ajar. Cautiously, Huy pushed it open. Beyond, the courtyard was silent. Entering the inner rooms, and passing through them, they found no one. There was no sign of struggle, or any hasty departure. Everything seemed to be in its place: there was not even the suggestion of an interrupted dinner. Only when they came to the room in which Mutnefert had received Huy did they become aware of movement behind the door. They opened it, and there was a frantic scampering. Then, from its place on top of the pile of cushions, the little red-faced monkey hissed and bared its teeth, glaring at them with furious, desperate eyes.
There was little activity at the quay, but Taheb managed to track down one of the harbour-masters who told her that he had seen two people set off downriver in a hunting boat only a short time ago. People frequently went after wading birds and duck in the early evening when they would be feeding; but on this particular day he had to admit that he’d thought it odd because nearly everybody was celebrating the arrival of Nebkheprure Tutankhamun.
‘Can we follow them?’ Huy asked Taheb.
‘There’s Splendour-of-Amun. But I don’t know about the crew, or how long it’ll take to get her turned round and ready.’ She spoke automatically, as if in a dream.
‘I know what you are going through,’ said Huy.
‘Do you?’ she replied sharply. Her eyes were too bright. Quickly, they made their way along the front to where Splendour-of-Amun was moored. They hurried aboard and Taheb raised the boatswain, who was drinking black beer with the three men who had been left on guard while the rest of the crew joined in the celebrations ashore.
‘We can’t sail her on our own,’ said the boatswain, looking at Huy suspiciously after Taheb had made her request.
‘We are going downstream,’ said Taheb. ‘You have enough men to steer her.’
‘But not to get her back.’
‘We don’t have to worry about that.’
The boatswain looked doubtful. ‘I don’t know. Now that we’re home, I’d need to ask the captain —
or the owner.’
‘I am the owner’s wife.’
‘I know, but — Look, it’ll take half an hour to get her going. It will be dark. Why do you want to go now, anyway?’ His gaze moved from her to Huy again.
‘We’ll take the skiff,’ Huy said. ‘We will take your three men to crew it, and you stay with the barge. When we return, you will be reported to the owner.’
The boatswain gave him a dark look, but turned and shouted a curt order. The men got to their feet and made their way forward to where the skiff was cradled. They swung the little boat out and lowered her into the water. They had already drunk plenty, and misjudged the drop, so that the skiff crashed down nose first. But she righted herself, and the sailors climbed aboard, swiftly followed by Taheb and Huy.
Once out in the stream the cool wind and the steady, easy work of rowing with the current calmed them. The sun was setting blood red over the horizon beyond the Valley, and Huy could make out the lonely black mound of Rekhmire’s old tomb against the glow, devoid of significance to anyone there but him, and he did not point it out to Taheb. She sat stone-faced, looking ahead, trying to pick up any shape on the River in the gathering gloom ahead.
‘We must catch up with them soon,’ she said. ‘They can’t possibly have made much headway on their own.’
Huy wondered what she was thinking. Perhaps she wanted to rescue her husband, make him see sense, avoid scandal. Perhaps it was that simple. Or perhaps she was not thinking at all. Just going through the motions for the sake of doing something. He wished there had been time to contact Aset.
Something bumped gently against the side of the boat and there was a swirl of red water behind them as they moved on.
‘Crocodile,’ muttered one of the sailors, looking at Huy. ‘Don’t worry. This boat’s too big for ’em.’
‘What if they’ve beached the boat, gone overland?’ asked Taheb.
‘Where would they go?’
‘I wonder where they think they’re going, anyway.’
Suddenly, in the midst of the darkness, they saw a darker shape, shimmering because it was still too far ahead for them to focus on it.
‘Pull harder,’ said Huy. The sailors rowed on. As they drew closer, they saw that the little boat ahead was bobbing, more violently than by any motion the current would have caused. At the same time, faint cries reached their ears.
The sailors, themselves looking in the direction the sounds were coming from, pulled the skiff around broadside to the current and held her there.
‘What are you doing?’ shouted Huy.
‘Saving our lives,’ the sailor who had spoken before replied evenly.
‘You said we were too big to be in any danger from crocodiles.’
‘Not when there are this many of them.’
Taheb tried to stand up and the skiff rocked wildly. ‘Amotju!’ she cried in a voice of unfathomable anguish.
The current was pulling the little boat up ahead further away from them. Around it, the water had begun to seethe. They could just see the two people on board stabbing out with their oars. Then the last glimmer of light drained from the sky, and the wind carried their voices to the skiff no more.
It was accounted a death of high honour to be lost on the River, and as their bodies were not recovered, effigies of Amotju and Mutnefert were commissioned to be the hosts of their Kas in their tombs. The statue of Amotju was placed in his father’s tomb, behind the great cedar doors; Mutnefert’s was erected in the vault of her husband, which was not in the Valley, but in the burial place of the Northern Capital. Taheb managed her husband’s obsequies with a frozen dignity, never again betraying by so much as the flicker of an eyelash the torment she had revealed in that one cry of her husband’s name.
As for Huy, his work, such as it was, was done. There was nothing to report, no file to be closed, no gain to be had. Somehow time had closed over the whole business like river water over a stone thrown in. The hardest job was telling Aset. Her grief, though it was as intense as Taheb’s was icy, excluded him from it no less. He wondered whether, after all, there was any mystery in Amotju’s love for Mutnefert.
He returned to his small house in the city. It seemed dark and mean, and full of ghosts: Amotju, Rekhmire, Ani; but also Aahmes and little Heby, whom he longed to see so much that he could all but feel the strength of his little body in his arms. The days passed. The priests set about the task of removing the name of the old king from every monument and column with renewed vigour. The Medjays managed, by extending their patrols, to reduce the number of tomb robberies in the Valley. The sun shone and the River flowed.
Huy settled to the task of getting on with the rest of his life.
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