The King's Man

by Pauline Gedge

  Huy nodded. “And did you poison Iaret, or conjure against her?” he asked gently. “Ma’at would not approve, not at all, but I would understand.”

  “Understand and keep my secret, but absolutely not approve either!” The smile that lifted the downturned corners of her hennaed mouth beamed out. “I didn’t like Iaret and I know that the King didn’t like her either, even though she was going to be his second wife. She complained about everything. But I swear before Amun himself that I did her no harm. The fevers began early. Queen Mutemwia ordered me removed to the harem at Mi-wer by the lake for my safety, but I begged her to let me and my mother go to Father’s estate instead. So that’s where we went. I was very bored. You were away, the tutors weren’t allowed near me, and Father wouldn’t let me enter the palace to attend either the morning audiences or the daily discussion of the dispatches. I didn’t see the King for several weeks.”

  Something in her tone alerted Huy. “You missed him. You’re discovering his many qualities.”

  “Hardly.” She made as if to run her fingers through the sheen of her dark red hair, felt the golden links of her circlet, and held an orange palm up to Huy instead. “I haven’t spent enough time with him for that. When we are together we argue, but he seems to like it. He laughs and doesn’t get annoyed. No, Uncle Huy. I like the shape of his eyes and the fullness of his lips and how deft his hands are, how they betray no hesitations. If I told my mother those things, she’d twitter with delight and talk about the physical pleasures of marriage.”

  “I won’t twitter, but I’m pleased. I’ll be attending May tomorrow morning to hear the dispatches. How is your study of Akkadian progressing?”

  “Very quickly.” She rose and smoothed down her sheath. “May’s scribe continued to come to Father’s house and I had nothing else to do but learn those symbols. Plain, aren’t they?” Leaning forward, she kissed Huy’s cheek. “I feel safer now that you’re here,” she said, and went out, a thin, still slightly awkward figure bearing herself with a dignity that Huy, with a pang of protective affection, realized he hadn’t seen in her before.

  After the noon meal he slept, and woke feeling almost well again. He had Tetiankh bathe and dress him, noting more sharply than ever before the body servant’s swollen knuckles, the fumbles he tried to hide, his slowness in standing after tying Huy’s sandals. On impulse Huy caught his hand. “Tetiankh, your responsibilities have multiplied since coming here. I require your attention far more often than I ever did in the more relaxed days on the estate. I would like Amunmose to find an assistant for you—unless, of course, you want to retire.”

  “Retire, Master?” Tetiankh frowned, and Huy knew that he had been correct in his offer. There was no shock or indignation in the man’s response. “It’s true that I’m not as capable as I used to be. I need more rest than the pace of your life allows, but I’m proud of my privileged position as your body servant. I was angry when Physician Seneb took away from me the preparation and administration of your poppy. It was at the command of Queen Mutemwia, you know.”

  “I had suspected as much.”

  Tetiankh withdrew his hand. “I have kept the secrets of your bedchamber for years, Huy. The care of your personal belongings and especially your body has been my sole vocation since the Mayor of Hut-herib deposited me on your estate. I do miss those happy years. I miss the Lady Ishat. So many memories, Master! You are quite right—I ought to retire. Part of me longs to return to the peace of the estate, but I hate the thought of abandoning you into another man’s keeping. I will stay if you will allow me to choose an assistant and train him myself. You are relieved, I see.”

  Huy hugged him, ignoring his recoil against such a breach of propriety. “I am relieved. Selfishly so. I ought to have given you this choice before we moved here. Now find my gold and carnelian earrings, Tetiankh. The King will be arriving at any minute.”

  Once seated in his reception room, Huy called for Paneb. “I have time to hear the scroll that arrived from Nekheb. Read it to me, Paneb, and don’t sing it. I don’t approve of the accepted monotone taught to scribes.”

  Unperturbed, Paneb broke the unstamped wax seal and unrolled the papyrus. “‘To my dear Master, greetings,’” he read. “‘Know that I have considered the request that I return to your employ with both longing and dismay. My mind often strays to the day you approached me in the heat and dust of the marketplace and changed my life forever, and the desire to rest once more under your kindly wings is strong. However, the dismay I would feel if I left Anhur is greater than that desire. I take flowers and food offerings to him almost every day, and I sit outside the entrance to his tomb and talk to his ba. I go into the goddess Nekhbet’s temple and pray for him. Thus I am comforted. Besides, there is much activity taking place just to the east of the town, at the mouth of one of the valleys where a desert route from the gold mines of the far south ends. A new shrine to Nekhbet will rise there. The white cord has been stretched and the foundations sunk. I have spoken with one of the architects named Hori. He says that he has met you. He tells me that the King and all his court will be moving to Weset soon, and Weset is only a few miles downstream from me. I yearn to see you then. Please forgive me. Your friend and servant Thothhotep, Scribe.’”

  A day for unexpected memories, Huy thought rather sadly, watching Paneb let the scroll roll up and set it aside, his face quite correctly bearing no expression.

  “Do you wish to reply to Scribe Thothhotep, Master?”

  Huy shook his head. “There’s no point. Thothhotep can be stubborn when she wants to, and she has good reason to stay where she is. I’m content with your proficiency, Paneb, and even if Thothhotep had accepted my plea I have quite enough work to keep three scribes busy. Get ready to note down any salient points of my conversation with the King and Queen Mutemwia. They will arrive at any moment.” I feel suddenly restless, Huy told himself as Paneb melted into a good scribe’s place of anonymity. It’s been years since I drove a chariot, but today I want to feel a set of reins in my gloved hands, or a bow, or even the heft of a well-balanced spear. I’ll have Ba-en-Ra or Sarenput go to the noble Yuya and arrange something for me tomorrow. Huy knew that his need for movement was a response to the unwanted surge of memories filling his mind, as though the sweat of his body might dilute them, force them to flow back to where they came from.

  Behind him, Amunmose was opening the doors and around Huy his servants were falling to their knees. He did so also, pressing his nose to the reed mat under him and stretching out his arms in worshipful submission. Arbiter of my fate, he thought as he saw her tiny jewelled feet come close. He was not addressing the King.

  In the evening, he greeted his brother with joy. They embraced fondly and at once settled themselves knee to knee in the soft lamplight of the reception room. Huy took his nephew Ramose’s chin and smiled into the boy’s alert face. “So, Steward in the Mansion of the Aten at Iunu,” he teased, giving him the title Mutemwia had granted him, “are you giving your mother Iupia any more grey hairs?” How different he is in every way from his half-brother the Vizier, he thought as Ramose grinned back. Everything about him is captivating.

  “I do hope not, Uncle. I’m doing well at school and that pleases her. I’m learning everything I can about the Aten so that when I reach my manhood at sixteen and go to Iunu to take up my tasks there I may serve the Regent well.”

  Huy looked at him curiously. He himself was fully aware that Mutemwia had given Ramose the appointment so that she could have a spy among the Aten’s priests. The King’s father had been well on his way to angering both the Atum and Egypt’s saviour god Amun by detesting Amun’s priests and openly preferring to worship the sun in all his hypostases, particularly Ra as Aten, the light as distinct from Ra as heat. Fortunately, Thothmes the Fourth had died before the cosmic balance of Ma’at had been put in true peril, and Mutemwia was determined to restore the correct equilibrium. Did Ramose know what his loyalty to the Queen would entail?

  “Speaki
ng of my twelfth Naming Day, you forgot it.” Ramose sank to the floor and settled his back against his father’s legs. “The first of Athyr, remember? We didn’t forget you, though, Uncle. We have a gift for your fifty-first Naming Day. I passed it to Amunmose. You can examine it later. Anen, what are you doing? Come and sit beside me.”

  The younger boy, who had been earnestly talking to one of the guards, approached Huy, who rose at once and bowed. Tiye’s brother lowered his head politely. “Great Seer and Scribe of Recruits.”

  “Noble Anen.”

  The child pursed his lips and cast a sidelong glance at Ramose. “I’m a Prince now, the Prince of Ipu. My father holds so many titles that he gave that one up. Ay will inherit all the others one day.” He waved Huy back into the chair with a carelessly natural gesture and slid down beside his friend. Graceful and delicate of body, he reminded Huy of Thothmes, who had been small for his age at school but had made up for his size with a sturdy wiriness. This boy, Huy reflected, seemed overly fragile. He could easily understand Ramose’s protectiveness. There must be at least two or three years between them, his thoughts ran on under cover of the general conversation, but judging by the Prince’s comments his intellect was as sharp as his sister’s.

  Both boys were drinking pomegranate juice and helping themselves to the honeyed sweetmeats Amunmose was presenting.

  Heby sat back and sipped appreciatively at his wine. “Syrian, Huy?”

  “No.” Huy smiled across at his brother, noting with an inner wrench the spider lines fanning across the temples, the slight bowing of the naked shoulders, the pouch of flesh hiding Heby’s belt. We no longer look alike, Huy reflected glumly. There was a time when we shared the virility and attractiveness of a manhood in full bloom, but Heby ages whereas I remain the same. No greyness, no sagging skin, no diminution of either intellect or physical strength except that caused by the strain of the Seeing. Atum has placed me beyond the grasp of time. He waits for me to discover the final solution to the meaning of the Book of Thoth, and his patience is an impersonal, relentless thing. The eyes of the hyena came flooding into Huy’s mind, its golden gaze fixed on him as though it could go on staring at him serenely forever, and with a violent inward force he drove the vision away. “No, it comes from Alashia, Heby,” he explained. “A gift from the King of that island for directing our navy against the pirates. Do you like the flavour?”

  “It’s different.” He drank again and set down his cup. “I’m going to miss having you so close, Huy. I’ve given up my position as Mayor of Mennofer so that I’d be able to concentrate on my duties to Amun’s cattle, and being Overseer of Amun’s two granaries here in the north is no happy boat trip either. Obviously Iupia and I will be staying on. I’ve commissioned an architect to design us a house outside the city, even though Amunhotep-Huy will be going to Weset with the court and before long Ramose will be taking his place at Iunu.” He gave Huy a rueful smile. “I’ll be sorry to leave our little house and our noisy, dusty street, but Iupia’s been nagging me for years to build something she considers more appropriate to my titles.” He glanced down at Ramose and Anen, sitting cross-legged on the floor and chattering away to each other.

  “I remember the day you married her,” Huy put in. “I sat under the one scrawny sycamore tree in your tiny garden, drinking date wine with Thothhotep and watching your guests. You were still only Chief Scribe to Ptah’s High Priest here in Mennofer then, and Iupia was the daughter of an aristocrat. Now you’re a King’s official and so am I.” He paused, holding his cup in both hands and gazing down at the red liquid. He could see his distorted reflection in it, the image trembling slightly. He looked back at Heby. “Both the past and the future are ephemeral,” he said slowly, “and even the present, which we seem to inhabit endlessly, is a lie. Yet we dare to speak of where we will be in five or ten years’ time. Heby, we will still be in the present and still thinking that the moment lasts forever.”

  “Why are you, the Great Seer, suddenly fretting about the passing of time?” Heby held out his cup and Paroi stepped forward at once to refill it. “It’s the move to Weset, isn’t it? You don’t want to go.” He took a mouthful of wine and smacked his lips.

  “Her Majesty keeps increasing the amount of work she piles on me,” Huy replied. “On the one hand, I am blessed by her trust in me and my abilities. On the other, I have a strong sense that once in the south the load I carry will increase. I’ve spent my whole life so far in or near the Delta, Heby. All my memories are here. Weset means the beginning of a completely new life. It’s not that I don’t want to go. Something waits for me there, a final test of my loyalty to Atum. He has not put me to any test since I failed to stand against the King’s father, but I’ve told you that he has promised me a last chance to redeem my cowardice. I saw a hyena in the garden.” He had always shared the details of his strange existence with his brother. Now he related his encounter with the magical beast. Heby drank and listened, but it was young Anen who spoke up when Huy fell silent.

  “You say that the hyena in the garden came to you from the Beautiful West, yet hyenas belong to Set, god of darkness and chaos, and they hate lions, and lions are the rays of the sun striking the earth, Ra and the Aten, golden and beautiful. Then how can there be hyenas in the Beautiful West?”

  The words had tumbled out eagerly. Anen had risen to his knees and was holding the gilded arm of Huy’s chair. As Huy turned from Heby, he saw a red flush creep across the boy’s delicate features.

  Anen sat back on his heels. “Forgive my presumption, Great Seer. I know I have offended good manners in eavesdropping on your words. I learn much that way, but Father punishes me for the habit.”

  “It is a bad habit, but a good way for a boy to learn of adult things, Prince,” Huy responded gravely. “However, along with stolen knowledge must come the resolve to keep what one overhears to oneself. As for hyenas in Paradise, all I can say is that I saw one there but it was unlike the vermin the peasants fatten up and eat. Perhaps there is a place for the followers of Set in the Beautiful West. Who can say?”

  “There must be, because some of the members of my family, having foreign blood, are red-headed, and yet we were born in Egypt and worship the King and the gods with every loyalty. The red-headed, and those who must use their left hands for everything instead of their right, belong to Set. So the priests say.”

  “You need not fret about it, Prince. Set is not evil, he merely loves turbulence.”

  Anen looked solemn for a moment. Then he nodded. “Thank you for informing me of this, Great Seer. Our tutors do not mention Set very often. According to your definition of the god, my sister Tiye used to be one of his followers. She enjoyed making turbulence. But since His Majesty has married her, she resembles a devotee of the goddess Hathor. She has begun to care about love and beauty and doesn’t tease me anymore or set her goose Nib-Nib to chase my brother Ay.”

  I wonder if Tiye knows how closely she’s watched by these intelligent eyes, Huy thought with amusement. The Prince would make an excellent little spy for Mutemwia.

  Anen touched him briefly and reverently on the knee. “Great Seer, will you Scry for me? I would like to prepare myself for my future.”

  “I would be honoured, Prince, so long as your father agrees. Have him send me a letter.”

  “Thank you, Great Seer.” Anen scrambled back to his friend.

  Huy watched him go with affection. His scrupulous politeness reminded Huy even more strongly of Thothmes, who would apologize for being in your way if you stepped on his toe. He’ll be staying in Iunu to go on governing his sepat. I really only have three good friends apart from Heby: Thothmes, Ishat, and Methen. I’ll be reduced to trying to stay close to all of them by letter. In spite of my intimacy with the King and Mutemwia, the bonds of true friendship cannot exist. Either one of them has the power to destroy me. As for Amunhotep’s ministers, I am already superior to many of them. And Atum? Anubis? One does not make friends with gods who enjoy far more supremacy
over one than the King himself.

  “Huy, you should be very pleased when you look back over your life and see how far you’ve come,” Heby was saying to him. “Why do you seem so glum?”

  “Perhaps I am not grateful enough,” was all that Huy replied.

  Later, after his guests had left and the household was settling down for the night, Huy sat in his office and read the reports from Naval Commander Nebenkempt, who requested that the building of more ships be considered; the noble Khaemwaset, governor of the three northeastern provinces, who had received a plea for heavier border patrols from the Assistant Governor who controlled Simurru, the area that included Amurru; and the officer in charge of the soldiers guarding the Horus Road. He and his men had been involved in a skirmish with the marauding Nemausha, killed a handful of them, and chased the rest back into the eastern desert. The scroll from Khaemwaset was more troubling. Amurru stretched along the coast. It bordered the land of the Amorites, and the land of the Amorites directly abutted the kingdom of Mitanni. Huy already knew from the foreign correspondence he dealt with that Mitanni was growing in population and prosperity. Governor Khaemwaset seemed to believe that Mitanni might be preparing to assimilate the tribes of the Amorites. Therefore a greater Egyptian military presence along the Amurru-Amorite border might ultimately be beneficial. Mitanni would certainly become aware of such a move, Huy thought as Paneb waited at his feet with brush poised. There will be protestations of wounded trust from Mitanni’s King, although he’ll certainly be aware of the reason behind it. I wonder if Mutemwia would consider a complete Egyptian occupation of the Amorites. Of course Nebenkempt must have more ships if he needs them. The shipwrights of Nekhen and Nekheb are our best. Nebenkempt can send both mayors a list of what he needs. The idea of Nekheb, a city he had never seen, brought Thothhotep’s face floating into his mind. It remained there while he dictated the necessary letters and reminded Paneb to make copies of the reports for the King and file the originals. The niches from floor to ceiling in Huy’s office were filling up rapidly.