City of Lies

by Anton Gill

  There was no boat to be seen that looked as if it had come from the South, but arrival times could vary by as much as a quarter of a day. Had he not been so eager to meet Reniqer himself, he would have sent a boy down to wait. Now, he glanced round the half-dozen or so eating and drinking house which were just opening, and which he knew from the days when he had lived here, to select a place to sit and wait. As he did so, he recognised the harbourmaster Paiestunef lumbering towards him. Paiestunef was not hard to mistake, as he was the fattest man in the Southern Capital. Already he was sweating, his tunic was wet, and his expensive wig awry on his head.

  ‘What are you doing down here so early? We don’t see you so often since you went up in the world.’ Unlike Tehuty, Paiestunef carried no malice in his voice. He was pleased to see Huy, and would in any case have wanted no part in the workings of the Palace Compound or its intrigues. He was content with his reputation as the only man on the dockside who could eat fifteen duck and drink the same number of hin of black beer at a sitting.

  ‘I’m meeting someone.’

  ‘From?’

  ‘The south.’

  ‘No boats in from there yet. Had breakfast?’

  ‘I know your breakfasts.’

  Paiestunef laughed until he coughed. He turned so black that Huy thought he might collapse, and there was panic in his eyes, but in the end he straightened up, eyes watering.

  ‘It wasn’t that funny.’

  ‘It’s the heat,’ said Paiestunef. ‘I ought to get transferred.’

  ‘Where to, in the Black Land?’

  Paiestunef shrugged. ‘The City of the Sea? The wind from the Great Green must cool it. Isn’t your boy up there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Paiestunef read the expression in the scribe’s eyes and asked no more. At that moment a man on one of the boats hailed him.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I must go. Next time perhaps – for breakfast?’ He laughed again. ‘I’ll look out for your boat,’ he said, going. ‘Where will you be?’

  Huy looked across at the eating houses again, ‘In the Garden of Sobek,’ he said.

  ‘Good choice.’ Paiestunef trundled away, with the surprising fleetness of many fat men. Huy went and sat down, hoping that he would not have long to wait. Reniqer’s letter had said he was due to arrive at dawn; but usually delays were never drawn-out. The smell of new bread was in his nostrils. He sat down and ordered a light wheat beer and fig-cakes.

  He had barely finished this slight indulgence – Senseneb had already and unnecessarily pointed out his expanding belly more than once, but he would do something about it as soon as they had left – then he heard a voice behind him.

  ‘Huy. Is it you?’

  The scribe turned, blinking in the sun to see the man who had touched his shoulder, and stood with the bright East behind him.

  ‘Reniqer?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where is your ship?’ Huy touched the man’s shoulder and smiled. Reniqer had lived long in the south. His mother had been a woman of one of the tribes beyond Meroe, and his skin was the colour of hers, of the hard black wood that came out of the forests. He was tall, and shone like a god’s statue that the priests have splashed with water at the Morning Greeting. The smile he returned was broad, but Huy, used to noticing such things, saw that his eyes did not smile as well. His look was furtive. He seemed to resent being in the open at all, and every movement, intended to look relaxed, instead looked hurried.

  ‘It is upriver. Did you think I had come on one of those?’ He indicated the barges that wallowed nearby. Despite his desire to sound easy, he had all but snapped his reply.

  ‘Of course not. Even I know they cannot pass the upper cataracts. They are barges of the north.’

  ‘Were you ever a sailor?’

  ‘No. I wanted to be. I know I look like one.’

  ‘You would have made a good one.’

  ‘Well... I would be ungrateful to Thoth if I complained at the life I lead.’

  ‘But you are intending to give it up.’

  ‘It is the job, not the writing. Thoth would understand that. In the south I may find time to write still.’

  ‘And what would you write?’

  ‘A history.’

  Reniqer continued to smile through the pleasantries, just as his eyes continued troubled.

  ‘What happened to your ship?’

  ‘I left it upriver. It was delayed. I hired a donkey.’

  ‘Why was it delayed?’

  ‘Oh, you know – it was damaged on rocks when they hauled it over the cataract above Soleb. They patched it, but it was going too slowly for me.’

  ‘Downstream there is only one speed you can travel at: the speed of the River,’ said Huy, smiling.

  ‘It kept having to put in to the bank.’

  There was nothing in Reniqer’s manner to show that he was at all needled by Huy’s question. But his eyes would not stay still.

  ‘Where is your pack?’

  ‘Over there,’ Reniqer pointed to where a small boy in a ragged white kilt stood in the shade of a mud-brick wall, feeding sedge to a russet donkey. On its back were two small linen bags.

  ‘You have not brought much,’ said Huy, trying not to sound surprised.

  ‘I am not staying long.’ Reniqer hesitated. ‘And I hope to have your company on the way back. That is,’ he corrected himself immediately, ‘I hope that you will be able to come south as soon as possible. Everything is now in readiness for you, and your friends there are eager to see you. The princess sends greetings.’

  ‘Then we must hurry. But you must have good news for us.’

  Reniqer spread his hands. ‘At least that I have found somewhere for you to live in Meroe which you will like; and that I have also found some places for you to look at near the town, which I hope you will like.’ he had just spoken of his principal business with Huy; but he had sounded distracted, as if his heart had been on something else.

  ‘You have worked hard.’

  ‘Yes.’ Reniqer passed a lean hand over his brow.

  ‘And I keep you talking in the sun. Come on.’ Huy was wondering how Senseneb would take the news of a hasty departure. From the size of the bags, Reniqer was planning to stay no more than a few days.

  Again Reniqer hesitated.

  ‘You will stay with us?’ said Huy.

  ‘No. You will be busy and I have other affairs while I am here. You will forgive me. I will stay at the Fragrance of Nefertem. It is a small place not far from the Palace Compound, but I know the family there and sometimes stay with them.’ Reniqer took a swift look round. ‘And now forgive me. I have made contact with you, and I must go. I will – ’

  ‘Let me take you there, at least.’

  Huy knew that Reniqer did not want to be accompanied; but there was nothing the land agent could do about it. The scribe knew the house Reniqer had named, and he was curious to know why the land agent had chosen such a small, discreet establishment to stay in. It was the last place anyone would expect to find him.

  ‘I will buy you a beer before I leave you,’ he added, remorselessly.

  ‘It is early.’

  ‘I am not suggesting a black beer. A red beer. That is hardly a drink at all. You must be thirsty after your ride from wherever it was you left the boat, and you cannot refuse hospitality. Where did you leave the boat, by the way?’ Huy and Reniqer had met only once before. If the scribe’s jovial manner made the land agent wince inwardly, he did not show it.

  ‘Somewhere downriver,’ he replied blandly. ‘A village. I don’t remember.’

  But he had hired the donkey, and the donkey would have to be returned. Huy was about to ask about this, but the land agent must have read his mind for he cut in,

  ‘I brought a fellow from the village with me. He will take the animal back once I’ve unloaded my belongings.’

  This at least was true. As if on cue, a slim young man in a grubby kilt emerged from the low door of an eating house near wh
ere the donkey was tethered. Blinking in the sun, he looked around and, seeing Reniqer, rose an arm to wave before squatting down by the pile of greenery from which the donkey placidly continued to eat, fed by the little boy. The youth placed himself next to the boy and said something to him which made him laugh happily. The sudden sound of the laughter rang around the buildings – the air was not yet heavy enough to flatten it.

  Reniqer now seemed in a hurry to get on, and ushered Huy across the paved dock, whose flagstones were already beginning to get hot, towards them. ‘We can ask him the name of the village, if you are so curious,’ he said.

  Not long afterwards, as Reniqer and Huy were making their way uphill through the narrow red streets to the main town, Paiestunef watched the first boat from the south manoeuvring its way alongside one of the smaller jetties. A small knot of passengers disembarked, amidst the usual shouting and unnecessary fuss over baggage. Paiestunef looked them over: country people, mainly, and a better-dressed elderly couple who looked tired – but they were quickly greeted, as he watched, by a man and a woman who had arrived shortly before with two large palanquins, picked out with gilding and white paint.

  ‘Any other people come up with you?’ he asked the captain, a stubby man in a greasy tunic that had once been blue.

  ‘Couple of men travelling alone. One got off downriver- hardly worth it, I would have thought, but he’d paid his fare. Only odd thing was he got off in the middle of the night when no one was about.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  The captain scratched his stomach. ‘No. Not a thing. The water’s up, and it was good sailing even through the upper cataracts.’ He slapped the side of the hull. ‘Not a mark on her.’

  As they talked, another man slipped down the gangway and disappeared into the crowd that was beginning to build up in the harbour square as the day’s work got under way. His face was strained, and after quickly scanning the buildings around him, he darted forward and ran up one of the streets which led to the town, picking it seemingly at random.

  Paiestunef walked over the the Garden of Sobek to tell Huy that his passenger hadn’t arrived. Huy is a generous man, he thought, and he is rich now. He won’t begrudge me the price of a few drinks if I offer to look out for his guest and see him safely delivered to the Palace Compound.

  But the scribe must have given up already, for he was gone.

  Another day passed and the River rose higher and turned greener. River horses were seen wallowing in the reaches that edged the town, and children were kept back from swimming for fear of crocodiles lurking in the opaque water.

  Senseneb had been supervising the packing, her heart not in it, with Hapu’s help. Hapu, carrying his pot-belly with even more dignity than usual, harried the hired slaves relentlessly, managing to be everywhere at once, and the thing had been done with far less trouble than Senseneb would ever have anticipated. The figures of the house-guardians, the little battered wooden image of the lion-dwarf Bes, and the schist Horus, both of which had come with Huy from the City of the Horizon, still stood on their shelf, watching over the place until it was time to leave. The sacks of barley, corn and onions had already been taken down to a dockside storehouse, to await the boat that would carry them to Meroe, and soon the furniture would follow. There was not much of it, but what they had was good. The two gilded beds of black ivory would soon be carefully packed, along with the folding stools, the clothes chests, the cooking stove supports, the pestlesand mortars, the low chairs and tables, and all the other accoutrements that had made this place theirs.

  They had not been here long enough for it to have found a firm place in Senseneb’s heart, but the leaving of it wrenched at her nevertheless. She still could not rid herself of the feeling that they were wrong to be going, that something would happen to hurt, perhaps destroy, them down there. Huy had set his teeth against her objections, almost as if, the decision made, he had not wanted to listen to them anymore, even if he believed that they might have substance. The tension between them had not helped.

  ‘It will be good,’ he had said, trying to mollify her. ‘You had the princess as a friend. She will be pleased to see you.’

  ‘I have many more friends here.’

  So it had gone on, round and round, trying to find a way out. If only, she had thought, they could at least leave somewhere here to come back to, it would not seem so bad; it would not seem that every link had been cut. But how could that be? The house in the Palace Compound belonged to the State Archive for Barley Production, and the little house in the harbour quarter had been sold.

  But the last worry at least she was soon to have lifted from her. As the sun set, Huy came back, dusty and tired, but smiling. The smile was cautious, but that was usual with him. No-one who had lived the kind of life which Huy had led would ever be able to relax. As he said sometimes when he was drunk, anyone who could get through this life, need have no fear of death. The Fields of Aarru were broad and sunlit, and there a man’s future shone into eternity.

  He had been with Ay. It was unusual for him to return from such interviews smiling.

  ‘What did he tell you?’

  ‘Something good.’

  ‘Well?’ She was not pleased that he had not yet commented on how well the house had been cleared.

  ‘Ay has been generous.’

  ‘You have done enough for him.’

  ‘But he has rewarded me. There was no need for more kindness.’

  ‘It is unlike you to be craven.’

  Huy controlled himself, though he knew – but not why – that she wanted to fight. Perhaps his news would calm her.

  ‘Ay has granted a wish that you had.’

  ‘Did you ask him to?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘He told me that he will keep a place in the Palace Compound for us – if you – if we – wish to return.’

  ‘A house?’

  ‘Rooms.’

  ‘No garden.’

  ‘Rooms.’

  Senseneb, who loved gardens, knew she was in no position to bargain. In any case, it was the bolthole she had wanted.

  ‘You will have a big garden in Meroe. Like the one painted here.’ Huy gestured to the mural.

  ‘Ay is gracious.’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘Why?’

  Huy’s smile became warmer. ‘You have picked up much of my suspicion. But I wondered too.’

  Senseneb shrugged. ‘It is because of your friends here. Taheb, Ipuky...’

  ‘Ay is a man who will always leave every single option open.’

  ‘And every smallest fraction of a cubit of his back covered.’

  Huy stopped smiling.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Reniqer. I was due to see him too, at the Nefertem, but he was not there.’ Something about Senseneb’s reference to Ay covering his back had made Huy uncomfortable. Reniqer was due to return south in two days more. There were still points of business to discuss; but the land agent had seemed increasingly reluctant to see him – or, as far as Huy could make out, anyone. And yet a man like that would normally have plenty to do in the capital. Property wasn’t all Reniqer dealt in. There was gold. There were slave girls from the south, too, who were fetching very good prices now. Black skins were attractive, and the girls were supposed to be hard workers and uncomplaining lovers.

  Reniqer should have had plenty to do. But he didn’t want anyone to know he was there.

  ‘Had he left word for you?’

  ‘He’d left early in the morning and not come back.’

  ‘Do you think there is anything wrong?’

  Huy shrugged. ‘If there is, I can’t see that it is anything to do with us. Unless it affects the business we have with him. But he was certainly edgy.’ Huy was silent for a moment, but he could not leave the topic alone yet. ‘Why is he hiding himself away? He should be making a splash, entertaining, drumming up business.’

  ‘Perhaps that is not the way he does thi
ngs.’

  ‘He is a trader. They all work like that.’

  ‘Perhaps he has private customers already. Like you.’

  ‘Well, it is possible,’ said Huy, uneasily.

  ‘And he is not here long.’

  ‘But there must be some reason for him to come such a distance for such a short time.’

  Senseneb smiled. ‘Look! Even I know how fast the boats go. People travel to the Northern Capital and even the City of the Sea just to make one deal.’

  Huy was silent at that. He thought of the shallow-draughted Nile boats with their tall prows and lofty cabins, which provided look-out posts on their tops to command a view of the riverbanks as far as the cultivated land stretched. Light enough to be dragged through the turbulent, rock-strewn cataracts and able to thread their way through the many sandbanks of the River, they could, he knew, cover a hundred miles a day at their fastest speed. The wind blew constantly from the north, so that with a sail set progress upstream could be as fast as it was down, with the current to push a boat along.

  ‘He may even have a mistress here,’ added Senseneb.

  Huy looked rueful. ‘He may.’

  ‘You have too suspicious a heart.’

  Huy spread his hands.

  ‘Do we know who your successor will be?’ asked Senseneb.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Huy, his expression changing.

  ‘Who is it?

  He paused. He could not resist the moment of theatre:

  ‘Tehuty.’

  ‘Who?’ flared Senseneb after a pause of her own.

  ‘Tehuty.’

  ‘Aahmes’ brother? But he is a fool.’

  ‘And worthy of such an empty post. Seriously, he is a good archivist. He is an excellent archivist, and not a fool, really, at all. He’s just a man who’s let his desires take over his heart. This will free him.’