The King's Man

by Pauline Gedge

  “Artatama gave me complete freedom in everything but the smithies, Majesty,” he answered gently. “I did not betray his trust in me, although of course it occurred to me that the secret of purple gold would be a mighty gift to bring home to you. It would have been foolish to endanger the peace our ancestors created between our two countries. I have prepared a full report on all aspects of Mitanni society and government for you. My scribe Ka-set has already placed it in Ptahmose’s office.”

  “And your gifts of purple gold to both of us are truly appreciated,” Mutemwia said. “Oh, my dear old friend! It’s wonderful to see you and hear you and know that I may visit you in your old apartments whenever I wish, as I used to do when the King was a baby! Do you remember how he would chuckle and smile up at you as you cradled him in your arms?” Very good, Mutemwia, Huy thought. Very good indeed.

  The Prince also recognized the ploy. Leaning towards the King, he spoke with reverence. “I loved you as a baby and I love you as my King, Nephew Amunhotep,” he said gently. “I will never do anything to harm you. I know what it’s like to live in the shadow of death at the hands of those one loved and trusted. Something inside me was destroyed when my father and brother turned against me. You must trust me when I tell you that I have no wish to put on the shackles of kingship, imprisoned by protocol and carrying the weight of Egypt’s health, both secular and religious, on my shoulders. I have lived in freedom for the last twelve years. I only want to stay in the palace until you and I become friends. Then, with your blessing, I’ll retire to my estates at Ta-she, find a capable Egyptian wife, and spend the remainder of my days boating on the lake and watching my grapevines flourish.”

  Huy, watching the King, whose attention had become riveted on his uncle’s face, saw the wine-flushed young features gradually loosen.

  “I didn’t intend to hear my fear expressed aloud by you, Uncle,” he rasped. Then, coughing, he went on more clearly. “Still, the Queen my Mother warns me that kings should not place their trust blindly. I want to trust you. I want to be your friend. But for now you will be guarded by my soldiers, not yours. And I may ask the Seer to hold your hand as he did once before.”

  “Wise decisions,” the Prince responded. “I would make them myself if our positions were reversed. Now please dismiss me, Majesty. I want to be bathed and shaved before the feast you are so kindly giving me tonight, and I’m eager to re-enter my old apartments.”

  Amunhotep nodded, his cheeks now pale. Huy wondered if he was about to vomit out the wine he had consumed so rapidly. The Prince rose and Huy did also, bowing to him as he backed to the double doors with Pa-shed already holding them open for him. When he had gone, the King looked up at Huy.

  “I really want to be happy to see him,” he said. “I did not behave towards him as a King should, or even an ordinary member of his family. I’m very sorry.”

  “I know. Dismiss me also, Majesty. You need to sleep again.”

  But Amunhotep gripped his kilt. “You love me, don’t you, Uncle Huy? You would never hurt me, would you?”

  Huy knelt beside the King’s chair and put his arm around shoulders that felt suddenly frail and vulnerable to his touch. “You became the child I was never privileged to father,” he murmured so that the motionless servants could not hear. “I have loved you ever since you began to spend the months of the Inundation with me on my estate. I vow that I will never harm you or knowingly allow anyone else to harm you. Be happy to see the Prince. Treat him tonight with the esteem he deserves.”

  Amunhotep let go of the linen and Huy rose, bowed deeply, and walked away, Paneb at his heels. By the time he entered his own domain, his body was tense with the need for poppy. He ignored the throb. “Paneb, find Amunmose and collect any letters that have come for me,” he said. “I might as well deal with them before the noon meal.”

  To his delight, there were scrolls from both Thothhotep and the steward Merenra, now caring for his estate outside Hut-herib. Merenra had little to say beyond assuring Huy that all was safe and peaceful in his house and garden and he was making sure that the domestic servants kept everything in order in case their master should decide to visit his home. Asking Paneb to make sure that Merenra was receiving enough gold to maintain his arouras and feed his staff, he broke the unadorned wax seal on Thothhotep’s letter. “To the Great Seer Huy, my Master, greetings,” it began, and Huy, seeing the woman’s neat, familiar script fill the roll of papyrus, felt a stab of homesickness. He read quickly. Anhur, dear Anhur, who had guarded Huy as a boy on one of his journeys to Thoth’s temple at Iunu and had later come to the estate to captain Huy’s soldiers, was becoming increasingly debilitated, his breathing more laboured in spite of the medicines Thothhotep purchased for him. She thanked Huy for providing the gold that allowed them to live in relative luxury and spoke briefly of the pleasure of living beside the river in Nekheb, the town of her birth, but at the end anxiety for her husband and her longing for Huy and the satisfaction of her life as his scribe broke through. “Anhur must now sleep sitting upright and I rest on a pallet beside our couch,” she said, her voice rising clearly to Huy from the black hieroglyphs. “I give him the poppy your generosity has provided so that he can forget his lungs for a few precious hours. When he is able to talk, his words are all of his life with you, our life with you, and a powerful nostalgia for the past. He often begins his statements with the old oath ‘As I love life and hate death.’ He will not enter the Judgment Hall easily. We miss you very much, and I envy the person who now walks behind you in my place. Written by my own hand, Thothhotep, scribe. Dated this fourth day of the month of Phamenoth, Year One of the King.”

  I miss you also, my little waif plucked from poverty, Huy thought. Aloud he said to Paneb, “I don’t recognize the imprint on the seal of this last scroll. Whose is it?”

  “The chariot depicted is the mark of Yey’s family,” Paneb told him.

  “Then break it and read the contents to me.” He placed Thothhotep’s scroll lovingly on the table before him, beside the one from Merenra.

  “‘To the Great Seer Amunhotep, son of Hapu of Hut-herib, greetings,’” Paneb began in the even tones adopted by most scribes so that their opinions of what they were reading did not influence those of their masters. Huy, who was used to Ishat’s very definite inflections and Thothhotep’s lilt, found it irritating. “‘Please accept my heartfelt apology for the recent behaviour of my daughter Tiye. She has been severely disciplined, but continues to plead for a chance to have you touch her and thus See her future. Knowing that once such an idea comes to her she will importune me until I capitulate, I humbly request that you Scry for her and thus bring peace to this unhappy household. However, I understand that your duties are many. If you wish to refuse her, dictate to her directly or she will not believe me when I tell her that you have no time to indulge such an ill-mannered chit. By the hand of my Chief Scribe Bakenkhons this sixteenth day of Phamenoth, Year One of the King, Yuya, Prophet and Overseer of the Cattle of Min, Lord of Ipu.’”

  Huy smiled. “It sounds as though the noble Yuya would like me to refuse the Lady Tiye in order to teach her a lesson she obviously finds difficult to learn. Write to her. I shall See for her tomorrow, the eighteenth of this month, in the evening. She may not bring any of her pets, including that damnable goose that guards her, and she must show the letter to her father and arrive at my doors properly escorted. That’s all, Paneb.” The man bowed and glided away.

  I haven’t Scryed for anyone since I left the estate, Huy thought. Taking her hand in the evening will ensure that any demands on me that the King might make will have been accomplished. My head can then ache all it wants. I confess that I’m rather looking forward to divining for this girl.

  He was not summoned to wait on the King. Calling for Paneb, he lay on his couch while the scribe took him yet again through the list of Egypt’s many ministers and officials. Huy had already begun to put names to all the faces he saw coming and going, but when Paneb began a descri
ption of the gods’ High Priests, Huy sent him away, drank the poppy Tetiankh had already prepared, and fell asleep. He did not wake until his body servant came to light the lamp beside him and usher him towards the bathhouse.

  The feast that night to celebrate Prince Amunhotep’s return was held in the reception hall of the palace. The vast space was thick with invited guests from the throne dais, where the royal family sat, to the march of lofty pillars through which the night breeze flowed to battle a hundred different perfumes and the smoke from a hundred huge alabaster lamps on their tall stands. Beyond the pillars was the great stone apron that ran to a canal filled by the river. Here the light was a dim orange from torches whose flames trembled in the soft, moving airs. Beneath them lounged the guests’ litters and bearers, watched by the palace guards. They too were fed, and passed the time in gambling or dozing, while in the hall their employers sat amid thousands of fragrant blooms as the King’s liveried servants in their gold-bordered blue and white kilts wove carefully through the throng bearing trays laden with steaming dishes and jugs full of wine.

  Although Huy had not been invited to take a seat with the King, Mutemwia, and Prince Amunhotep, he was accorded his own table close to the foot of the dais and his own trio of servants for his needs alone. Captain Perti and four soldiers stood between Huy and the noisy crowd as he ate and drank, his attention fixed unobtrusively on the gods at the high table. The King seemed happy. Gorgeously arrayed in cloth of gold from head to knee, the jewelled uraeus, the vulture goddess Nekhbet of the South and the cobra goddess Wazt of the north, rising in protection and warning from his glimmering helmet, he was not only a handsome youth but the embodiment of sacred power.

  On his right sat his blood-uncle. Prince Amunhotep’s head had been shaved, his eyes kohled, his body obviously massaged with the oil that glistened on his skin. His adornment was simple, a set of plain gold bracelets on his left forearm, a chain of delicate filigreed gold around his neck, and a pair of golden feathers trembling from each lobe. Paired feathers were symbols of the god Amun. Huy knew that the Prince’s devotion to Amun, and his refusal to help his father and younger brother raise the sun-disc Aten to prominence over Egypt’s mightiest deity, had resulted in the man’s exile and the loss of his right to the Horus Throne.

  Mutemwia, lovely and gracefully fragile in white and silver, was leaning across in front of her son and smiling up into the Prince’s face while she spoke to him. His expression was one of gentle affection. They make a striking pair, the mother of the King and the King’s uncle. Together their authority would be well-nigh invincible. Shocked at the unbidden words, Huy drew back just as someone touched his shoulder and a soft mouth moved against his ear.

  “See that bevy of painted girls clustered at the foot of the dais, just beyond your extremely rude captain? They’re the King’s sisters. Have you been allowed to meet them yet? The oldest one, Iaret, is a dowager Queen like Mutemwia. Her father married her before he died. Mutemwia keeps her firmly in hand.”

  Huy swung round and found himself enveloped in the familiar aroma of mingled myrrh, cassia, and henna flowers as two arms went around his neck. “Ishat! What are you doing here? Gods, it’s good to see you! Is Thothmes here as well?”

  She kissed him on the cheek and settled back, sitting easily on a cushion she dragged towards her. “Of course. So are all the children, and Nasha. Didn’t anyone tell you that every Governor and his family was invited to welcome the Prince home from Mitanni? Mutemwia has been planning this ever since her husband the Osiris-one Thothmes died. Huy, you look positively haggard. Aren’t you being treated well in the palace?”

  “And you look radiant as always. I see that you’ve given in to vanity and begun to henna your hair. The rusty red suits your personality. Captain Perti was rude to you?” As he spoke, his eyes meeting her own, he could feel every tension within himself melting away.

  She grimaced, a twist of the mouth Huy remembered so well. “Not rude exactly, but he was determined to keep me away from you. At the King’s command, he said. So I pushed my way back to Thothmes and made him come and argue with the captain. He’s awfully young, isn’t he? But full of self-confidence. Thothmes is taking this opportunity to talk Governor talk with his equals. He’s anxious to see you, but later, when the two of you can talk in peace. Have you seen your brother Heby? He’s here with Iupia. I waved at him. He was talking to your nephew Amunhotep-Huy. Now there’s a truly rude young man! None of us can leave until the King does, so I might as well have something to drink.” She beckoned to one of the servants standing against the wall. “Bring me beer.” Her gaze returned to Huy. “Why don’t you visit us more often? Why do you look so strained? Are you Seeing for too many people? Who’s your scribe now? Did you hire yet another woman? Have you heard any word from Thothhotep and Anhur?”

  Taking her hand, Huy began to answer her questions, aware of her eyes fixed on his mouth as he formed the words, knowing, with an intuition honed by the long years they had spent together, when she was about to interrupt him, and falling silent before she spoke. Her beer arrived. She drank with relish, then the two of them began to reminisce, falling easily into the comfort of their past.

  The meal ended, the guests moved back, and the entertainments began. Dancers, fire-eaters, magicians, animal tamers, came and went to roars of appreciation. Huy and Ishat retired to a shadowed corner of the hall, where they talked on, oblivious to the noise, Thothmes’ steward Ptahhotep and Huy’s Amunmose hovering patiently nearby. At last Ishat yawned. “I wish the King would go to his couch. How can such a young man need so little sleep? It’s too late for any visiting tonight, Huy. May we all come to your apartments tomorrow morning? Thothmes has carob pods from Rethennu for your cook, and a bag of almonds, although I expect you eat anything you want here in the palace.” She struggled to her feet just as the King rose, nodded at Chief Herald Maani-nekhtef, and left the dais through a door at the rear, followed by the King’s mother and uncle. Two men Huy did not recognize began to shepherd the King’s sisters away. Harem attendants, Huy surmised. He beckoned Perti.

  “Captain, please escort the Lady Ishat wherever she needs to go.” He hugged her briefly. “Until tomorrow, Ishat. Come early. Afterwards we can eat the noon meal together in the gardens.” Together he and Amunmose watched her walk through the slowly emptying hall, Perti and his men surrounding her, Ptahhotep behind.

  “I don’t miss her until I see her, Huy,” Amunmose remarked. “Then I remember those perfect days on your estate when you and she worked together for the people who lined up at your gate, and I was newly arrived and awed by Merenra and your good fortune. Then my thoughts stray even further back, to the time I was asked by High Priest Ramose of Iunu to accompany a young boy to Thoth’s temple at Khmun, the city where I was raised. I was still very young myself. Then I start thinking about how much time has gone by, and how fast. Then I become depressed. Seeing Ishat is not good for me.”

  Huy laughed. “You’ll never change, will you, Amunmose? The Governor and his whole family will appear tomorrow. Find Rakhaka. I want him to cook for us all.”

  “He won’t be happy. He hangs about the royal kitchens and tries to tell everyone what they’re doing wrong. We all need to get out of here.”

  Huy did not reply. Anhur and Amunmose had always been allowed the privilege of addressing him by name and speaking to him in equality. Amunmose is right, he thought as they moved between the pillars and out under the starry night sky as though they had agreed to seek fresh air before taking the longer way back into the palace. I must put the matter before the Queen, but not yet. I must earn the right to a house of my own. Having walked leisurely around the building, they were almost at Huy’s garden door when Heby’s steward Prahotep caught up to them. He bowed.

  “Great Seer, I have been looking for you everywhere! Your brother and the Lady Iupia wish to greet you tomorrow morning. Will their presence then be acceptable to you? Mayor Heby apologizes for neglecting to approach you at the fea
st, but he did not want to interrupt your conversation with the Lady Ishat.”

  Huy answered him with a spurt of pleasure. His family and his dearest friends would be with him together. “Of course. Tell Heby I’ll be delighted to see him.”

  “We might as well be back on the estate, considering the small amount of time you have for visiting your own kin,” Amunmose grumbled as he held the door open.

  Huy bade the two soldiers on the door a good night and entered the apartment. “Before you sleep, make sure that Paroi goes to Rakhaka with the number of people we’ll be entertaining in the morning, please, Amunmose.” Huy turned towards his bedchamber with relief.

  They poured into Huy’s reception room not long after the sun had risen—Heby, Iupia, and Ramose, who had celebrated his eleventh birthday three months earlier, Thothmes, Ishat, and their three children—hugging each other, filling the space with chatter and laughter, and spreading themselves on the floor and the chairs. Ishat’s eldest son, named after Huy himself, lowered his tall frame on a mat beside Huy, and Huy, smiling down into the thoughtful dark eyes, was assailed by a momentary sense of unreality. This boy had somehow become a man of twenty-one, and was accompanying his father Thothmes, learning the craft of governorship against the day when Thothmes would die. Glancing around at the cheerful faces, Huy noted Nakht, Thothmes’ second son, named after his grandfather, talking rapidly and with many gestures to Heby, who was nodding sagely. Beside him Sahura, Thothmes’ daughter, had found a place on the floor and was talking to her mother, sitting with her knees bunched up under her yellow kilt. She resembled Ishat so closely that Huy became even more bemused. How old is she now? Eighteen, I think. When Ishat became eighteen, we were already living on the estate Pharaoh Amunhotep the Second had given to me. The years between have flowed swiftly. I myself am fifty. How did that happen?