by Anton Gill
‘Where did the fisherman find the body?’ asked Huy.
‘I do not know. It had caught in reeds.’
‘But the fisherman lived in Kerma.’
‘In a village nearby. Downstream.’
Huy looked into his heart. ‘Did you ask after Reniqer in Kerma?’
Niui looked bewildered. ‘No.’
‘Why should he have?’ asked Samut.
‘Reniqer’s body had floated downstream. It must have done. So that he may have reached Kerma before he met with his accident. He must have done.’
‘Reniqer did not reach Kerma,’ said Niui. I found out the boat that had brought him down from Soleb. I spoke to the captain. It was like this: Reniqer had missed his boat at Soleb and took the next one going south. It was going as far as Kerma. The night before they arrived – it was well past and the Matet boat was rising – Reniqer must have fallen overboard.’
‘Could he swim?’
‘No,’ said Samut.
Huy looked inward again. ‘Did you ask anyone how he seemed?’
‘No,’ said Niui, bewildered again.
‘No one said his khou was agitated? No-one noticed that he was troubled?’
‘No one said anything like that,’ said Niui. Then: ‘The captain who took him on board at Soleb said he seemed relieved. But that must have been because he managed to get a boat so soon after the Khepri had sailed.’
‘Yes,’ said Huy. ‘It must have been.’
They stood in a silent group. Then Samut clapped his hands, looking round. Most of the people in the inn had either left or retired now, and there was in the place that desultory atmosphere which comes when the life has gone out of it. A tired potboy lounged by a counter. The remains of the roast goat still sizzled on the dying fire. Huy called into his heart a picture of Reniqer’s solitary figure walking down the street of the Palace Compound away from them.
‘Get us some wine and then go and rest,’ Samut told Niui. ‘I will want you to travel with me tomorrow.’
They sat at the table they had used earlier while the potboy unstoppered a jug of pomegranate wine and brought it to them with a dish of dates and barley rolls.
Samut waited for him to serve them and withdraw before he spoke, looking quizzically at Huy.
‘It looks as if your old job is following you,’ he said.
Senseneb looked at Huy. Huy looked at the wine in his cup.
‘Or is it trying to trip you up?’ said Samut. Then he covered the pause that followed his remark with a genial laugh. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘I will not meddle where I am not wanted, and I have been told often enough that my nose is too long.’ He turned to Senseneb. ‘Tell me about your father. I remember well how Horaha loved his garden, and the pleasant times we spent at his villa in the grounds of the House of Healing. I hope his successor has kept it up. His collection of healing herbs was a wonder.’
The talk turned innocuously then to the Southern Capital and Senseneb’s early life, of which Samut knew much. Talking to him, Senseneb forgot her earlier anger, and Huy noticed regretfully with what wistful animation she spoke of the city, but the die was cast now, and if he felt any regret on her behalf at leaving, he only had to remind himself of the claustrophobic officialdom he was escaping to dispel it.
Finally Samut took his leave, remarking that it was, after all, really high time that he paid his departing respects to the Viceroy; but he did not invite them to join him. Perhaps on account of the lateness of the hour, thought Huy. If Senseneb took it as a slight, she did not show it; but she had never been one to care about social niceties and she had certainly never expressed anything but the most passing interest in the Viceroy.
After they had retired for the night, Senseneb asked, ‘What do you think of Reniqer’s death?’
‘I do not know what to think,’ replied Huy truthfully. ‘I cannot think of a reason for anyone to kill him now. He had delivered his message to me, and if they had been watching him they would have known that.’
‘But who are they?’
Huy smiled thinly. ‘Yes. Who are they? And what is in Ankhsi’s mind?’ He watched her as she prepared for bed. ‘That is perhaps something you can find out.’‘Perhaps Reniqer’s death was an accident?’ she suggested.
‘The possibility exists.’
She did not like it when he closed his heart to her but she recognised the signs. Huy was a man who walked on his own; and he had done so for a long time. It was hard for him to break the habit of his isolation, and she knew that to relinquish it would be a sacrifice to him, not because he liked it, but because it was what he knew. It was hard for her, too, but she liked the way his eyes shone, as they had not done for the period of his employment at the State Archive for Barley Production.
‘What if Ankhsi does have ambitions for her son?’ he asked her.
‘It would depend on who else knew about them.’
‘Is it possible that she could?’
‘He is a baby, not yet out of the arms of Renenutet.’
‘But that does not matter.’
‘You said yourself that she might wait until she knew how his khou would develop.’
‘She has given him a royal name.’
‘But no one knows it.’
‘No one that we know of.’
Senseneb looked at him. ‘But she would never let anyone know that she had also given Imuthes the name Amenophis. Even with Tascherit’s help, she could never protect herself against Ay in the way that Horemheb can.’ She paused, looking troubled. ‘Besides, in giving his son a royal name, Horemheb has thrown the gauntlet down to Ay. Ay is still without a direct heir of his own.’
‘And yet it is all still in the family,’ mused Huy. ‘It is sometimes hard to remember that Ay is Horemheb’s father-in-law.’
‘Where there is power there is no love,’ said Senseneb, quoting the proverb. ‘But I have thought of something else: Ankhsi could never prove that Imuthes was Tutankhamun’s son.
‘We have spoken of this.’
‘Then recall the truth of it.’
‘There would be no shame to Tascherit if it were discovered that he had fostered the true heir to the Golden Chair. He would gain high honour by it.’ Huy wondered if Tascherit would be unhappy if offered Horemheb’s position as Commander-in-Chief. If Ankhsi rose, unlikely as it seemed, Horemheb would surely fall. And Ay... well, his line of succession would be assured, even without the son of his own he yearned for; and Ay was not a man to prefer death to compromise.
But how could all this be achieved? There would have to be favourable and undeniable omens; there would have to be the backing of a powerful priesthood. There would have to be a cause.
Perhaps his heart was pondering an interesting hypothesis and nothing more. Like a possible sequence of moves on the senet board in a game played in the confines of the heart.
‘And Samut?’ Senseneb was saying.
‘You had better tell me.’
She unclipped her earrings, then removed her wig and ran a hand through the short black hair which covered her scalp. Huy had been sorry at her decision no longer to wear her own hair, but they had both bowed to the conventions of fashion – which had returned with a rigorous strictness after Ay had ascended the Golden Chair – when they had moved into the Palace Compound. Now he would dispense with his own wig, and he hoped that she might do the same.
‘I think he is a man who lives in Truth,’ she said.
‘Do you really not remember him?’
She arranged the wig on its stand clumsily, used to having attendants to do this kind of job for her; but they had sold the girl from the Land of Two Rivers to Tehuty, as she had begged to be allowed to remain in the capital. Hapu was the only servant travelling with them; the few others they had kept would join them as soon as their household was established. Otherwise they had plans to hire or buy their retinue locally. Huy had never liked the idea of servants. He had learned to live without them and he preferred to do things for himself anyway
.
‘No, I do not remember him. But my father and mother had many friends, and I rarely saw them. I was with my nurse when they had visitors.’
‘He seems to have known your family well.’
‘He certainly spoke of them with knowledge.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Huy, catching her tone.
‘I do not know.’ She hesitated. ‘He spoke as if he were describing a picture.’ She shook off the thought and would not pursue it. ‘But it is a long time ago for him too.’
‘The older you are, the less remote is the past.’
Senseneb looked at him. ‘I liked him. Must you mistrust everybody?’ She turned to the earthenware wash-stand which the servants of the inn had prepared, and splashed her face irritably, wiping off her makeup with a linen towel dipped in oil, and then rinsed her mouth in natron and water. ‘You are becoming like you were. It is happening quickly,’ she continued, suddenly getting angrier.
‘No.’
‘What is it then?’
Huy looked round the room a little helplessly, trying to find words which would not offend her. They were both tired of the journey, and as its end approached both their anticipation, and anxiety at what they would find, were getting keener. And if it was bad there could be no immediate turning back because that would have meant a loss of face.
And there would be work to be done, if it were only the attempt to solve the problem Ankhesenamun had relayed to him through Reniqer. They had not yet arrived in Meroe, and already what he had hoped would be a simple life was getting cluttered. He should have learned by now the futility of fighting fate. ‘Be a leaf on the stream of the River,’ his father had taught him once when he had grown old and already looked across to the Fields of Aarru. ‘Let the current carry you and do not fight it. It will take you where you are going anyway. All life flows downstream until it reaches the Great Green.’
‘Is Samut not like a picture?’ he said at last.
‘I do not see your meaning.’
‘You could not see the man behind his eyes. And have you ever seen anyone recover from news of a death as quickly as he did from that of Reniqer?’
‘But why should he grieve? They were partners not friends.’
‘Partners share secrets.’
‘Sometimes.’
Huy looked at her sharply. ‘Do you think he knew of Reniqer’s mission on Ankhsi’s behalf?’
‘He did not show it if he did.’
‘And yet he spoke to me quite openly of the Aten. Without sounding me out.’
‘If he already knew your background...’ Senseneb shrugged. ‘It is no secret. Nor is it a secret that the Aten is still worshipped in the south.
‘But why mention it at all? I am not a religious fanatic.’
‘Do you think he was?’
‘I think he was trying to flush me out.’
‘Then he was doing so very clumsily.’
‘But why do it in the first place? He didn’t pursue the matter.’
Senseneb undid the short-sleeved pleated dress she was wearing. ‘I still think you are looking for meaning where there is none. If you want to worry about something, worry about that bull of a man who came in and stared at me. I shall not forget his look.’ Her eyes turned inward at the recollection.
Huy smiled. ‘Perhaps you are right. I am too inclined to jump at shadows.’
He joined her on the bed, which was too narrow for them to be comfortable. In any case he would not have been able to sleep, and he lay looking at the ceiling, too hot, listening to the intermittent noises of the night above and beyond the sound of Senseneb’s gentle breathing. His heart would not be still, picking up and turning over explanations before putting them back, satisfied with none of them.
The following morning he was dull and stiff, and his head ached. He left Senseneb to give Hapu instructions for buying food for the onward journey, and after climbing on board he leant idly on the rail by the prow and watched Samut supervising the loading of a number of packing cases and crates of various sizes. In the sunlight, the merchant’s colour was less healthy, Huy thought; but perhaps he too had slept badly.
Samut was the only new passenger to join their boat at Napata; but at the last moment, even as the crewmen were preparing to drag the gangplank aboard, the bulky figure of the stone man (as Huy had come to think of him) appeared on the quay and, without appearing to hurry, clambered up to the deck.
Henka stood alone in the stern, his face turned to the keen north wind that billowed the sail as they sped upriver following the long curve that would take them down to Meroe. His eyes looked at the egrets which flew behind the boat, and at the waves made by its wake, but he did not see them, any more than he felt the rising sun warm his face or the wind in his short, grizzled hair. His face was as unmarked by expression as ever, but in his heart there was sudden and dreadful turmoil.
His hands fumbled at the folds of his kilt and from it he withdrew the half sheet of papyrus that Ay had given him. He looked at the writing there for the hundredth time, not to understand it better – severed, it made no sense anyway – but in order to try to will it to be joined by its other half. Killing or not killing had never mattered to Henka before. It was all one. But now his certainty was dashed and his independence gone.
He had fought it of course, but now he could no longer do so. Since he had first seen her at Kerma the new feeling had been upon him and once it had taken root it had grown. Now it had mastered him. He knew what it was. He had heard of it, but he had never sought it, indeed, he had avoided it, and he thought that he had built a strong and lasting wall around his heart against it.
But the last of that wall had crumbled the night before as he had stood and watched her at the inn. Their eyes had even met and he had not been able to tear his away though he could read anxiety and even fear in hers. For the first time in his life as a grown man his heart struggled with the problem of seeing himself from the outside. He had never given any thought to himself beyond the small habitual memories to which he clung. Now this woman by her mere presence made stones move. What had she done to him? Was she a witch? The thought had occurred to Henka; but he was armed against sorcery and the feeling she had called up in him brought such keen pleasure with the agony. It was like a terrible drug, and he was all the more vulnerable to it because he had fortified himself against the very experience that in time would have strengthened him against it.
His heart was not agile. In defence it went back to the meeting with Ay. He had given his orders, and the orders were to kill the scribe and his woman. But not immediately. He was to follow them to Meroe and wait for one complete revolution of Khons’ chariot in each of its four silver and black appearances before taking action, and then only if Kenna had not come with countermanding orders. So his master too had doubts, which he had never had before.
I have my orders, Henka said to himself. He spoke his Name to himself for reassurance, looking inward for comfort where he had never sought or required it before. Comfort was so distant a memory for him as to be an illusion. I have my orders, but how can I obey them when they mean I must kill her?
The wind pricked his eyes making them water. He was alone on this part of the deck and he would continue to keep to himself. He would not eat for the rest of the journey so that he would not have to sit with the others. The more he saw her the more he was lost and he knew that once he had looked at her he would not be able to look away. Did she already know what she had done to him?
He could kill the scribe but not the woman. Rebellious thoughts could barely squeeze through the cracks in his heart. Could he somehow save her? Keep her safe from Ay and tell him he had killed them both? Ay trusted him, and would not ask for proof. He would not have to take their heads to the pharaoh. His word would be enough. Ay had never ever had occasion to doubt it.
For the first time he wondered why his master wanted such a thing done. Thoughts were breaking through like the water of the River through a badly maintain
ed dam. How could these deaths make Ay safer? And if they could not, how could his disobedience damage his master? Meroe was far from the capital. No one could threaten the capital from there.
But there was a darker possibility. He could kill the scribe and the woman; and then he could kill himself. He could join the woman in the Fields of Aarru; but if he cut out the scribe’s heart the scribe would become a ghost and could not join them there.
A part of Henka remained which loathed this assault on his equilibrium. He had not had to balance possibilities for many floods. His great bulwark against life and his own loneliness in it was obedience. Let others make the decisions, so long as they relieved him from the pain and the responsibility of thinking. But it was too late. The locked bronze doors of the cell where his heart sat had burst open with a force which had buckled them on their hinges. He could never close them again.
He gritted his teeth and screwed up his eyes against the sun.
The last days of the journey passed. The weather grew warmer and the desert cliffs that flanked the River grew redder. At last they passed the town of Atbara, where the River was joined by a sister coming in from the south-east, and soon afterwards they could see Meroe spread out low and white on the east bank.
The wind blew lazily now, and the boat all but drifted into the harbour. Huy and Senseneb watched as the details of the shoreline became clearer. By the quay a large palanquin rested, and two people stood by it, apart from a group of attendants distinguished by their blue livery. One was a tall man whose earth-red skin had darkened to umber under the southern sun. He wore a plain white pleated kilt and a white headdress. Next to him, in white and silver was a slender woman on whose head Huy could see a diadem mounted with the uraeus. It was clear that Ankhesenamun had not abandoned her imperial rights. As the boat drew closer Huy could see that her features had hardened –though the stiffness of anxiety in her face might have been due to her present trouble. She smiled and waved as she saw them.
