The King's Man (38 page)

“But not troubled enough,” Anubis said. He stepped back, and at once Tiye’s features smoothed. Colour returned to her hair and she took a slow, deep breath. “We have great sympathy for you, Huy,” the god continued. “Your intentions have been good. You made a choice in the innocence of youth when you stood before Imhotep in the Beautiful West and agreed to read the Book of Thoth. You could not have anticipated everything your decision implied, yet when you realized that the task of Seeing had been thrust upon you, you were obedient in spite of your rebellious desires. Atum, Thoth, Ma’at—we all know what you have lost and what Egypt has thus gained. You rule her well.” Once more the god’s jackal lips lifted, this time in a smile. “But you are human, you will die, and unless you find a way to disinherit the boy the Empress carries, all your work will have been in vain. Amunhotep is your tool. Use him.”

Huy had opened his mouth to ask just how the King might be used when he realized that his head was pounding, the god had gone, and Tiye was pulling her fingers out of his grasp.

“Well?” she said. “Did Anubis tell you the sex of my child? I am not afraid to hear it, Huy.”

Yes you are
, Huy thought, watching her eyes.
And my fear at the knowledge is now greater than yours
. “You are carrying a male child, Majesty,” he said.

Her face lit up. Clapping her hands, she called the guards on the door to summon Userhet, and picking up her cup, she drained it quickly. “Good news!” she exclaimed. “Great news! Thank you, Huy! Amunhotep will be overjoyed! Now we must have more wine to celebrate!”

Huy shook his head, then winced. “Forgive me, Tiye, I must go home to my opium and my couch.”

Immediately she sobered. “Of course. You are in pain. You may go. Userhet, escort the Seer to his litter.”

The steward had come up to Tiye’s chair. Now he offered Huy his arm, and gratefully Huy took it, struggled to his feet, sketched a bow, and, followed by Paneb, escaped into the corridor, where he leaned against the wall.

“Perti, have my litter brought here—I can’t walk through the palace tonight. Userhet, go back to your mistress.”

He wished that Kenofer had accompanied him. The body servant would have been ready with Huy’s drug, but Huy had been unprepared for a Seeing. He was thirsty for water. Already the familiar black and white pattern was forming in front of his eyes, blocking his sight. By the time he and his attendants reached his house, he could not see at all. But before he allowed Kenofer to administer the opium and then undress him, he dictated the sum of his encounter with Anubis to his scribe. As always he remembered every word said, every inflection. Paneb would seal the scroll and place it in the chest with the accounts of all the other royal Seeings. Then Huy took the tiny ball of raw opium and stood while Kenofer removed his clothes, washed him, and helped him onto the couch. He could neither sleep nor think. He lay curled in upon himself like a child while the night wore away.

11

THE KING WAS CAUTIOUSLY PLEASED
with Tiye’s news. “You didn’t see an early death for the child, I suppose?” he said to Huy as they stood together outside the entrance to Amunhotep’s tomb. “Must I order the masons to hew yet another room out of the rock below in sorry anticipation of a second son’s demise?” He waved a commanding arm at the gaping hole behind them. “I’m beginning to think that I’ve offended the gods in some way, although I can’t imagine how. I’ve poured gold and manpower into their glorification throughout Egypt. I’ve been obedient to the laws of Ma’at. What else can they expect of me?”

“All I know is that the Empress will give birth to another boy,” Huy replied. “Atum will not show me his fate until I’m able to touch him.”

“As the harbinger of constant bad news, are you becoming as suspicious of Atum’s prognostications as I am, Uncle?” Irritably, Amunhotep waved away the cup of water a servant was offering. “You’ve given Thothmes the title of Troop Commander and allowed him to begin drilling the soldiers stationed at Mennofer in his spare time away from Ptah’s temple. A sensible position for the heir to the Horus Throne. Can it be that you doubt the prediction of his early death?”

“All I know is that the Prince won’t see his twenty-first year,” Huy answered. “And no, Majesty, I’m sorry, but I don’t doubt the word of Atum. I continue to See for many of the courtiers with the accuracy the god provides.”

“Tiye insists on coddling the boy,” Amunhotep said testily. “Two physicians and even a guard in his bedchamber, even though she’s aware of the years ahead that have been allotted to him. Hopefully another son in the nursery will set her mind at rest. It will certainly do so for me. A second male child strengthens the possibility of a peaceful succession.”

Not according to Anubis
, Huy thought moodily.
Your marriage to Tiye was a mistake of my own arrogant making, and I’m commanded to undo the harm I’ve done. But how? How may I use Amunhotep to do so? All these deaths to come, are they the result of a marriage that wasn’t meant to be? Will Atum wipe all trace of this royal family from Egypt’s sacred history?

“Wake up, Uncle. You’re not even listening to me.” Trailed by his entourage, Amunhotep began walking towards the scattered piles of bricks not far away. His sunshade bearer hurried to catch up to him. “Let’s see what progress is being made on my new palace. Already I can imagine the magnificence of my finished funerary temple, but why are the labourers working so slowly on this?”

“Because you keep changing the architects’ plans and driving poor Hori and Suti to distraction, not to mention Men, the Overseer of Works. They’re also responsible for the ongoing construction of your funerary temple,
and
Amun’s temple at the Southern Apt.”

“A beautiful tribute to Amun and myself,” Amunhotep said. “Your design is glorious and harmonious, and the avenue of holy sphinxes lining its short distance from Ipet-isut very grand, but it’s been twelve years since its foundation was laid and still it isn’t ready to be consecrated. Everything slow slow slow! I’m impatient to take up residence on this side of the river, away from the noise and stench of Weset. Hurry them up, Huy.”

“I can if Your Majesty will stop interfering and leave my architects alone.”

Suddenly Amunhotep’s infectious grin broke out. “And will you forbid Anhur to take me fishing and send me to my room if I disobey?” He laughed. “Very well, dearest Uncle, I leave my future comfort in your hands. Let’s get out of this infernal heat. I want my couch.”

They boated across the river, now at its lowest ebb, and parted, the King to his apartments and Huy to his house. His bearers were waiting, sprawled drowsily in the sparse shade cast by the tired trees lining the canal to the palace’s entrance. Huy left the curtains of his litter open as he was carried the short way to his house. The river path, dusty and deserted at that time of the day, soon began to run between the river and the poppy fields that formed a protective area around Huy’s estate. Here the bearers paused to allow Huy to answer the challenge of the soldiers before turning towards his sheltering wall through the desiccated plants. Their appearance was deceptive. Leaves yellow, dry stems bent towards the arid sand, they looked dead, but Huy knew that the precious drug had already been harvested from the pods and the seeds carefully collected to be sown the following spring. Guarding the arouras against thieves was a boring necessity, and Huy and Amunnefer made sure that the men stationed on the perimeter of their lucrative venture were amply compensated.

Two gates gave access to Huy’s domain. One faced north into the poppy fields and the other spanned the canal leading from the river and running past the house to the luxuriant garden beyond. Now, in the middle of Mesore, the canal was dry. The guard on the northern gate admitted the litter, and soon Huy was alighting under the pillars that fronted his reception hall.

Amunmose emerged from the shadows and bowed. “Paneb has gone to his afternoon sleep but wants you to be prepared to deal with the seven scrolls on your desk this evening, Master,” he said, following Huy as he entered the coolness of the great room. “Kenofer is also asleep on his mat before your door but begs to be woken if you need him. The Lady Nasha has not returned from the house of the Lady Thuyu. Captain Perti—”

Huy hushed him with a wave of his hand. “Everything can wait until I’ve rested. Get to your own couch, Amunmose. For once I’ll be eating the evening meal here at home, so tell Rakhaka, will you?”

Removing his sandals, he set off across the long expanse of the hall, glad to feel the slight chill of the white and blue tiles against the naked soles of his feet. It took him some time to reach the hot breeze of the open passage beyond and the guarded stairs leading up at right angles to the chambers above. Most of the administrative business inherent in his position as mer kat was conducted in the many offices adjacent to the palace, but sometimes matters of a delicate nature were dealt with here, in his home, where his reception area was deliberately designed to create a diffidence in the officials who appeared before him at the foot of his dais. Amunhotep had insisted that the imperial colours be apparent in the house. “You are the extension of my arm and the chosen companion of the gods,” he had said flatly. “My brother, my uncle, my beloved Seer, the only man I trust completely. If anyone is privileged to live amid the blue and the white besides myself, it’s you, mer kat.” So Huy’s staff were kilted in blue and white, the flags flying from his skiffs and barges also sported the colours of a royal house, and Huy himself wore striped blue and white linen ribbons plaited into his long braids. The palace servants, the common folk he encountered coming and going, would kneel and prostrate themselves when he passed, and long ago Huy had given up trying to prevent their extreme homage. “The people know who rules Egypt,” Amunhotep had casually stated in dismissal of Huy’s protest. “They’re expressing their gratitude for the lives of peace and plenty you’ve given them, that’s all. You’re concerned that you’re appropriating my prerogative, Huy, but I’m not troubled in the least. This matter is of no importance.” Thankfully, Huy’s personal staff did no more than bow to him occasionally as they pursued their duties.

His under steward, Paroi, passing the foot of the stairs, nodded as he disappeared into the lower labyrinth of the great house. Huy nodded back, mounted the stairs, and at last stepped over a snoring Kenofer and turned into his own door.

The body servant had lowered the reed slats covering the one window Huy had insisted upon when the house was being designed. It was uncommon for a bedchamber to have more than a small clerestory transom just under the angle of the wall and ceiling—often there was no window at all—but Huy had not liked either trying to fall asleep or waking up in complete darkness. He still remembered tumbling into the utter blackness that had swallowed him when at the age of twelve he had been brutally attacked, and he preferred the discomfort of increased heat and the white sunlight filtering through the blind in the afternoons to a resurgence of that memory. Kenofer had placed fresh linen on the huge gilded couch and a silver dish of wrinkled figs beside the water jug on the bedside table. A clean loincloth and kilt lay on the lid of Huy’s tiring chest, waiting for Kenofer to dress Huy for the evening’s activities. A pair of earrings and several bracelets had been set beside the copper mirror on Huy’s cosmetic stand. Everything was as it should be, as it always was at this time of the day, yet Huy paused.

Some time ago, he had begun to wear the spicy perfume extracted from the small greenish-yellow flowers of the plum trees that grew freely in the sandy soil of the south. He had reached an age when almost every other scent either reminded him of those he had loved and lost to the Judgment Hall or else impelled a vivid memory, sometimes pleasant, sometimes distressing. Such moments could not be avoided, but surely it was not necessary to carry the constant recollection of Ishat or his mother or even Anuket on his own body. He disliked the brown fruit produced by the particularly unlovely, spiny, thorn-covered tree, but the odd scent of its flowers suited him. The perfume was kept in a blue faience bottle in his cosmetic box, and although it was firmly stoppered, the aroma always imbued the air of the room, mingling with a trace of the frankincense he often burned before his shrine.

Now, standing just inside the entrance, he became alert, his nostrils flared. Another odour, so faint as to be almost undetectable, was hanging in the close stillness, and he had the immediate feeling that he was not alone. His first brief thought was of Anubis, his mind swirling with images of fur and black skin, but the god carried the scent of myrrh with him as well as the odour of his body, and the air Huy was drawing into his lungs was unrelievedly rank. An animal had found its way upstairs, perhaps a pampered palace feline that had followed him home or, worse, a rat from one of the grain silos at the bottom of his garden. Paroi was engaged in a constant battle to poison them.

Carefully, Huy surveyed the room. His couch stood on four legs and there appeared to be nothing under it. Neither was there movement under the cosmetic stand or the gold and ivory table in the centre of the floor, and the chair drawn up to it was empty. The ornate golden shrine holding a likeness of Khenti-kheti, crocodile god of Huy’s natal town, was closed, and with a growing sense of unease Huy’s attention became drawn to its double doors incised with Khenti-kheti’s long snout and bulbous eyes. Inside the shrine, Huy knew, the god himself sat benignly, scaly tail curved around his stubby feet, waiting for the doors to open in order to receive Huy’s daily obeisance. Or did he? Huy glanced quickly into the thin shadows around the shrine. Nothing stirred, yet that distasteful odour was intensifying, edging out both perfume and incense. As Huy hesitated, the horrific conviction grew in him that Khenti-kheti no longer occupied the shrine, that something corrupt and tainted now squatted in his place, and that on no account must he open those little doors. But the idea was ridiculous, preposterous, belonging more to the realm of nightmares than to a hot, sleepy Weset afternoon.