City of Lies

by Anton Gill

  ‘We are all in the king’s hand,’ said Nesptah. ‘Look at the priests. Look at what they control. They own fifty towns here and five in the Land of Two Rivers. They own hundreds of thousands of cattle and tens of thousands of arura of land. Their boats outnumber the falcon-ships! And look! They bow when the pharaoh commands!’ He turned away to issue some commands of his own to another overseer.

  But they are in the Southern Capital, thought Huy; and besides, it is in their interest to back the pharaoh. His power is theirs. But if someone tried, not to overthrow the king, but to break away from his hold – to trade with him instead of giving to him – such a person could be a king in his own right.

  It seemed like many years, not just a matter of days, since Huy had faced Ankhsi in the same room. Her body was limp and there were dark rings round her eyes. Huy still felt the effect of the burning sun on his head from the previous day, despite the protective awning, and he had wondered how Nesptah, with his shaven head, could have withstood it at all. He lived here; he must be used to it. Would Huy himself ever get used to it? Would he stay here if he were free to? Would he want to, without Senseneb. If he had not been so mulish; if he had borne his dull, comfortable job with a balanced heart and found other ways of finding peace with himself, they would still be in the Southern Capital and she would not have crossed to the Fields of Aarru.

  ‘I am sorry there is still no news,’ she said.

  ‘We have to bear what the gods send us.’

  ‘But this is too cruel.’

  ‘Nothing is too cruel. There is water in the desert and death untwists limbs bent by illness.’

  ‘Death is kinder than life.’

  ‘But life is what we know, and ours to make of what we will.’

  She looked at him scornfully, ‘Well, so the priests say – and I suppose it is not a bad lie to live by.’

  Huy smiled. In other circumstances, he might have laughed.

  ‘Where is Tascherit?’

  ‘At the garrison. Why?’

  ‘I am glad. I have need to speak to you privately.’

  ‘And the attendants?’

  ‘It would be good to dismiss them.’

  ‘What is Kenna doing here?’ she asked, after she had done so.

  ‘Have you seen him?’

  ‘He came to give me greetings, but no more. There was no letter from Ay.’

  Huy lowered his eyes. ‘Kenna said nothing to you?’

  She looked at him curiously. ‘No.’ When he remained silent, she added, ‘What is it?’ She could already tell that some great ship was bearing down on her.

  ‘It is bad. You must prepare yourself.’

  He watched her face as he told her Ay’s intentions. At first she listened standing and facing him. Then she paced the room. Then she sat down and as he continued she appeared to diminish in the chair.

  ‘This he commands,’ finished Huy. He wanted to put an arm round her. Instead he stood back, detached from her, allowing no human contact to warm her isolation. He had yet to see what her final reaction would be.

  She faced him again, and he saw that her eyes were shining.

  ‘There are letters for Tascherit, you say?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you have not spoken to him yet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And may I not keep my son?’

  Huy looked down. ‘The pharaoh thinks that the son belongs to his father.’ He hesitated. ‘You must be glad that Ay does not know who Imuthes’ true father was. Can you rely on Tascherit not to betray him?’

  She looked inwards. ‘Yes,’ she said at last. ‘I am sure he loves the child. I am sure he has kept our secret truly.’ She stood up. ‘But it is of no consequence.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She turned on him. ‘What do you think I mean?’

  ‘Kenna brought these letters. I had no idea.’

  ‘I would like to believe that. I would like to believe that you had not become my grandfather’s creature.’

  ‘I came here to escape.’

  ‘But you still do the dirtiest job you are asked to do.’

  ‘You know I cannot disobey. No one can.’

  She looked at him and her eyes filled with tears; but she tightened her lips and sat rigid until she had herself back under control.

  ‘It is possible to disobey,’ she said. ‘Will you not join us now? Will you rescue me a second time?’

  Huy tried to find a way to tell her what was in his heart. ‘What you propose will never succeed. Before you have reached the Southern Capital, word will have been sent north to Horemheb. You may reach the Capital before he does, and even occupy it, but you will never hold it.’

  ‘He will not abandon the north!’

  ‘Who told you that? Samut? What man would save his legs to lose his heart? The Southern Capital is the centre of life in the Black Land. Horemheb would take it from you as a tax-scribe takes grain from a farmer. He would use the quashing of your rebellion as an excuse to take the Golden Chair. And then he would return to the north and resume his campaign. Do you imagine that the Kheta and the Khabiri are strong enough to press down upon us from the north as soon as our backs are turned? Do you imagine that Horemheb would not leave a holding force to keep them occupied for as long as was necessary?’ He broke off, seeing her more diminished by his words than she had been by Ay’s.

  ‘There must be something that will save me and my son!’ she cried, her shoulders shaking with grief as she sat, knees drawn up, a person into whom the gods had stuck needles. ‘I will fight even if it means death.’

  ‘Even if it means nothing, will achieve nothing, and save no one?’

  ‘Be quiet!’

  Huy was silent. He let her cry herself silent, too.

  ‘We may find a way to take Imuthes with us – ‘

  ‘Amenophis!’

  ‘ – but he may be safer here with his father.’

  She looked blankly across the room. ‘It is too late.’

  Huy looked at her.

  ‘It is too late to stop what we are doing,’ she said. ‘Samut has organised the people here. We cannot back down now.’

  ‘What do the people seek?’

  ‘Freedom for themselves. I have told you.’ She stood up and crossed the room to him, taking his hands. ‘Join us. It will be best. You will have all that you want. We will raise a great monument to Senseneb. We will raise it in gold and not a part of her will be missing so that her ka will be at peace with itself, and her Name will last forever.’

  Huy shook his head sadly. ‘I would rather see you live,’ he said. ‘If you continue in this you will die. Already someone has tried to kill you here. In the Southern Capital you will be safe.’

  ‘Is what you are offering me life, then?’

  Huy looked within himself. He felt weary. Why should he try to force her to return to the Southern Capital? Would she be attracted, in her present mood, by the prospect of time gained to lay new plans, if that was what she wanted? What did it matter if he failed? Perhaps it was better to fight and die than simply do what seemed sensible and expedient. He had exaggerated the confidence with which he saw Horemheb riding down their rebellion and keeping the northern invaders at bay. In truth he saw a war between Black Landers breaking the back of the country, and this it was that he sought to avoid. But why should he? For a king who had sent a killer to destroy him, and who had destroyed his new wife? Or for a stability that was threatened in any case by the great rivalry between Horemheb and Ay?

  ‘Kenna leaves after one more Journey-of-Ra,’ he said. ‘What shall I tell him?’

  She looked at him defiantly. ‘Tell him I will go,’ she said. ‘That will at least give me more time.’

  ‘There is a ship waiting for us already at Kerma.’

  ‘Then it can wait. I need more time.’

  ‘And the letters to Tascherit?’

  ‘No, Huy. You are still my friend. You must not speak to Tascherit about this yet – perhaps not at
all. You must obey me in this. You must have that much humanity.’

  ‘I will wait until you send for me.’

  He left the building feeling a great emptiness. The guards were still posted strongly at all gates and doors of the mansion. One or two of them stared after him as he made his way to the street, already rehearsing what he would say to Kenna, and wondering what the consequences of his actions would be. Still his heart would not let him be quiet. Who was trying to kill Ankhsi? Why did she trust Samut so completely? Huy had formed his own opinion of the man, and believed that the merchant’s desire for vengeance overrode his intelligence; but so powerful a desire might be enough to infect others, and there was no doubt of Samut’s wealth. Perhaps he had managed to keep his plans secret from Nesptah, who seemed interested in little beyond the consolidation of his own little empire in this corner of the Black Land. And Samut had been careful not to present himself as a rival to Nesptah, but as one content to live in the great man’s shadow. Samut, Huy considered, was a man with the wile of Seth. Was there really a chance that his plans might succeed?

  His thoughts turned from Nesptah to Takhana, and to what Samut had said to him about her reason for trying to seduce him. Perhaps she no longer considered him a threat to be neutralised. Perhaps now that Senseneb was gone, he was of no more interest to her. Within his heart he saw her in her red dress. She was a wilder creature than he had ever encountered before. He shook his head. He thought of her too often. Was he already in her power?

  Above all there was Senseneb. Where was she? Was she still alive? Surely if she was not she would have sent her ka to him, to reassure him, to show him where her body lay so that he could take it for burial. There were worse animals than jackals here, large, brutish doglike beasts that screamed in the night, whose jaws, men said, were stronger than a crocodile’s. If her body had been torn up, if it was not whole, how could he comfort her ghost? She would join the Undead, and wander the world looking for a heart – uncovering the shallow graves of the poor, bending over the bodies of dying children – to tear one out of someone else’s body to use as a passport to the Fields of Aarru.

  Huy thought of Ankhsi’s offer. A golden statue – a replica body to appease Senseneb’s ka. But no. She could not be dead. He walked down to the River and followed its bank south until he had left the town. Then he stood alone amongst the reeds and called to her; but still no answer came; not even an echo of his cry.

  Henka examined his wound. It was not healing properly. There were areas of yellow, and a green-grey sheen had appeared on its lower surface. he boiled water and cleaned it twice, three times a day, but, clean though it looked after he had swabbed it, within half a day it had returned to its former state, and each time it looked worse.

  Henka knew what it was. But he still caught fish and snared wildfowl – egret and duck – which he cooked on a small fire at the height of the day, when a fire would be least noticed. He cooked more now than he had when he was alone. There might have been a greater risk of discovery, but he was further from the town than he had been, and he knew that the hunt for him would soon slacken off. As far as he could judge, it already had, though only that sunrise he had had to slip below the water among the reeds to avoid discovery as a small trader with three Medjays in the prow had suddenly appeared round a bluff, with scarcely the sound of dipping oars to herald its arrival.

  He wished he could have got further away by now – into the safety of the desert to the south-west of the River but he was too weak, and as for the woman, he should never have hit her so hard. He had not meant to blind her.

  He looked at the wound again, willing it to heal. He told himself that with rest and patience it would, but a part of his heart kept concealed knew that the hope was faint. He had considered asking the woman – he knew she was a healer – but how could he trust her after what he had done to her? There was one last method he could try. He had seen it done, but by one man on another, and there had been others present to hold the patient down.

  Now he considered it again. The sighting of the boat had scared him. If they were still looking this far upriver, the woman must be of more importance than he had thought – though he had known she was physician to the Governor’s wife, he had not thought the town would care so much about a new arrival. He drew the spearhead from his bag and weighed it in his hand. It was heavy and thick, and would withstand greater heat without damage than either his sword or his knife. He placed it on the sand next to him and unwrapped his headrest amulet. Your head shall not be carried away from you after the slaughter. Your head shall never, never be carried away from you. He raised his eyes to look over the swollen River, and blinked them to rest them How long was it since he had really slept? The woman’s cries had kept him awake, and her scrabbling in the dark, until he had tied her. Now she was silent. But she would still not take food, though he cooked it for her benefit, taking that extra risk.

  It could be that the gods would not judge him harshly; would let him stay here. But would the ka of his mother forgive him for what he had done to this woman? It could be that she would. Mothers forgave all that their children did. No child was evil in the eye of its mother. But he had lost his mother. He had never known her. His only comfort all his life had been the memory of her warmth. He had hoped to get that from this woman. But he had destroyed that hope himself. It could be that it had always been vain. He was certainly being punished for it now.

  The worst moment for Senseneb had been returning to consciousness and finding it dark. The pain of it had been far greater than the fear engendered by Henka’s brief and clumsy attack, which had faded the moment he realised that she was blind. Since then she had lived in a dream from which she could not wake, though she had almost persuaded herself for a time that it was indeed a dream. She had clung to that illusion, fighting sleep, until exhaustion at last forced her into it. Then she dreamt, of trees and the River and sunlight, and of being a child again in her father’s garden. When she awakened, she lay for a breath’s time still hovering within her dream, her body relaxed. Then she felt the sand under her, sensed the suffocating heat of the cave, and smelt Henka’s stench. But worst of all was awakening into night, and realising that all that was left of the power of her eyes was in the mocking memory of a dream.

  Since then she had remained as still as she could, not speaking, not eating, and drinking as little as possible. Her first hope had been that he would kill her – that he would get it over with quickly, whatever he had to do to her, that she would gladly endure anything if its end would bring release. She called Huy into her heart as someone she had known long ago, or perhaps she had only dreamt him. Her childhood seemed more real.

  It was best when he was not there; but even when he was he did not speak, except when he offered her food or water. He had not threatened her or touched her again, and his voice had been gentle – or was it fearful? – she could not tell which. There was a time when she could not distinguish between waking and sleeping. She knew that she too was beginning to smell, and that the hair on her body was growing. Without oils of any kind, her skin was drying up in the wind which sought out the corners of the cave and blew sand into her open, unguarded eyes. She thought that she would never know what she looked like again, and that the last face she would ever see had been Henka’s, the last scene, his murder of her old servant. She fought the hollowness in her stomach and the needles behind her eyes. But she could not lose her desire to die.

  On the third morning she awoke from a deep sleep to feel the sun on her face. A part of her heart noticed that already her sense of touch was more acute, though she could not be sure that her hearing had improved yet. She was aware of variations in the texture of the sand in the cave. But this morning there was something else, something which for a breath’s time made her khou leap within her: she could see an outline: grey on grey, a rough semicircle with its flat side downwards and, sticking into it, an indeterminate mound of deeper grey that made slight movements.

 
She closed her eyes and opened them several times, but the vision remained. She summoned every deben of will in her body and concentrated it in her eyes, making the fluids of her body run through the metu to aid them; but too soon the outlines grew dark again, and to her despair faded once more into blackness.

  She had cried before, begged the gods to reverse this horror, hurled curses at Huy for ever bringing her to this place; but now she crawled back to her corner at the back of the cave and slumped there.

  But she could not stifle her senses, and she became aware of a new smell in the cave. It was slight, so slight that when she first caught it she thought she must have imagined it, but she could not forget her training, she had seen Hapu wound this man before he fell, and it was too familiar to her to have been conjured up in her heart. It was sweet and sickly. She caught it whenever Henka moved.

  She could tell day and night by the warmth of the sun on her and the cold of the night, when Henka covered her with some stiff, dank material which she supposed to be matting. By the degrees of silence interrupted by birdsong, the sound of the River, and the occasional distant cry of a farmer encouraging his oxen, she guessed that they were outside the town but not far from it. But she had lost track of time when he spoke to her.

  ‘I know what I have done to you.’

  She did not answer.

  ‘I would sooner have done it to myself. But it is done and I must care for you.’

  Her first feeling was disappointment. This torture was to continue, then.

  ‘There is no one else to do it.’ He spoke haltingly and awkwardly, but the sense of his words was unmistakable. ‘If I die, you will die.’

  ‘Do you think I want either of us to live?’ Her own voice came from outside herself. He did not reply, but shifted his body closer to her. She felt her face wince, but sensed no sign of reaction from her.

  ‘You say that, but you speak words without power. If I am to die I will use my last strength to build a wall across the entrance to this place to confine us. I will not place the burden on my heart of your blood, but neither will I leave for the Fields of Aarru without you. There, you will be my bride.’