City of Dreams (7 page)

‘Did you know the girl?’ He said.

‘We knew the family. Occasionally we would be contracted by Ipuky to bring a cargo of silver ingots north from the mines on the Eastern Sea, and then upriver from the Delta. There is an overland trade-route now, so we do less business with them.’

‘What sort of man is he?’

Taheb’s smile did not slip, but she was immediately guarded. ‘How much further is this going?’

‘No further than me. I cannot speak to Ipuky myself, though no doubt Merymose will.’ He hesitated, and then continued. ‘I am interested. That is all. Merymose asked me to look at the body.’

‘Poor girl. Was she mutilated?’

Huy looked at her curiously. ‘No. She was unblemished. Do you ask that for any reason?’

‘I associate murder with violence. I imagined she’d been knifed, violated. You have an inquisitive and suspicious mind.’

‘It is getting worse.’

‘So, why are you asking me these questions, and why should I answer them?’

‘I am asking them to satisfy myself, and because doing nothing bores me. It may be that my help will be called for. If not, I will do nothing with the information you give me. It will be as if this conversation had never taken place.’

‘You are diplomatic.’ She embraced him with her eyes, pleased, and as she poured them both more wine, rewarded him with a view of her leg. Fine golden hairs, which but for the sunlight on them would have been invisible, shone against the soft brown skin of her thigh. What
had
happened to the old Taheb?

‘Ipuky is a civil servant. I am too young to remember but I think he began his career as a supervisor in the turquoise mines of the Northern Desert, towards the end of the reign of Nebmare Amenophis. I know that he was one of the ones who resented the rise of the military. He kept petitioning Amenophis to restrict the granting of golden battle honours — not that the battles were anything more than skirmishes then.’

‘Do you know what happened to him during the reign of the Great Criminal?’ Huy was grimly amused at how easily he could deny his former master’s name.

‘You don’t have to obey Horemheb’s decrees here, and we are not overheard,’ said Taheb. She seemed irritated that he had not taken her into his confidence by using Akhenaten’s real name. ‘The answer to your question is that I don’t know. But he was certainly in office — probably still in the mines department — and managed to hang on afterwards. Did you never see him at the City of the Horizon? There were plenty of career administrators and businessmen along with the idealists, you know. And they were just as necessary to Akhenaten — possibly more so.’

‘And most of them were forgiven.’

‘That should not make you bitter. Of course they were. They were given the chance to recant, they did so, and they went on with their work. They are the ribs and backbone of the Black Land, and the army is its muscle. Without them the heart cannot function, however much it rules them.’

‘Can it rule what it cannot control?’

‘Yes, as long as it thinks it controls. Akhenaten tried to break that pattern and look what happened.’

‘Tell me more about Ipuky’s family.’

Taheb considered. ‘There were three children. Iritnefert was the only daughter, and she was the youngest. She was unmarried, and there was no one in prospect as far as I know. Her mother divorced Ipuky and went to live in the north of the country with one older son. Paheri. He was already grown, and became a priest of the Aten.’

Huy drew in his breath.

‘What is it?’ asked Taheb. ‘Did you know him?’ 

‘Yes. He was Surere’s right-hand man. But I did not know that he was Ipuky’s son.’

They were silent for a moment, both thinking of the escaped quarryman-prisoner.

‘I wonder what happened to Paheri, after Akhenaten’s fall,’ said Taheb.

‘He disappeared, like so many,’ said Huy. ‘There would not have been many to mourn him.’

‘Except his mother. He always thought that she had been wronged by Ipuky.’

‘She must have been the only woman Paheri ever liked. His nickname was Sword of Surere. They may even have been lovers, though they parted company towards the end.’

‘What happened?’

‘There was a bitter row. Paheri accused Surere of taking too soft a line; but I also heard that he’d found Surere in bed with a stable boy. Surere certainly began to enjoy the fruits of power towards the end, but Paheri was a deeply jealous man.’ Huy made a dismissive gesture. ‘That is all history, and Paheri must certainly be dead. Where in the north did Ipuky’s wife go? I don’t think she ever came to the City of the Horizon.’

‘She came from Buto originally. I think that is where she lives still. She never remarried.’

‘But Ipuky did.’

‘Of course. In his position, he had to. I do not know the name of his new Chief Wife, but I think that apart from her, he only maintains concubines. Most people think Ipuky is married to his work. He has the reputation of being a cold man, and appears to enjoy neither his power nor his wealth, though I find that difficult to believe since he works so hard to keep them.’

‘Are there children by his second marriage?’

‘I do not know them, nor how many there are.’

‘How old might they be?’

‘Certainly no older than eight. Still children.’

Huy paused, thinking. ‘And do you know anything of Ipuky’s other son — Paheri’s brother?’ 

This time Taheb was evasive. She tried not to show it, but she was not quick enough for Huy. ‘I don’t know. There was something wrong with him. I think the family managed to find him some kind of posting in a province in the north-west, towards the Land of the Twin Rivers. But no one has heard anything of him since the collapse of the northern empire.’

Huy knew better than to press her, and changed the subject. He already had enough to think about. ‘How are your own children?’

She looked at him archly. ‘Growing up. I am twenty-five. An old woman.’

‘Tell me that again in fifteen years. You will cause many sighs yet.’

‘You should have been a courtier.’

‘I did try.’

A scribe came into the courtyard timidly, his pen-box swinging from his left shoulder and a sheaf of documents in his hands, stained with red and black ink.

‘I am sorry,’ he said to Taheb, nodding carefully to Huy and bringing his arm across his chest in greeting. ‘These are the shipping lists you asked for. You said they were to be brought as soon as they were drawn up.’

Huy stood up.

‘There is no need for you to go,’ said Taheb.

‘Yes.’

She shrugged, standing too, taking the papers and nodding dismissal at the scribe. She came a little closer to Huy. ‘If only I could find you a job here.’

‘Long ago I wanted to be a boatman. Now I know I shall never have the skill. I cannot work as a scribe, and I am beginning to enjoy being free. How could I be useful to you?’

Taheb embraced him with her eyes again, but said nothing. Huy could not interpret the nature of that look. ‘I must ask you one more question. You knew Iritnefert a little?’

‘Yes, a little.’ 

‘What was she like?’

There was a pause before she answered. ‘A fire in the wind,’ Taheb said.

FOUR

It was a slow process, needing the kind of patience he did not have, but at least Huy was spared the tedium of the cutters, whose sole job was to trim the reeds to a regular length, about the same as a man’s forearm. The next step was for the peelers to strip the reeds of their rind, cutting it off with sharp double-bladed knives made of flint. These two tasks completed, the exposed pith was cut into narrow strips like ribbons, which were then placed side by side on a large, perfectly-flat slab of limestone which was kept permanently damp by boys scattering water on it, ever-moving fingers flicking across from earthenware pots.

The slices were perfectly aligned, and then a second layer was placed across them at right angles. Huy’s job was to tamp this second layer down on to the first. With two other men he worked his way rhythmically across the sheet, beating the second layer gently with rounded mallets until the starches produced from the pith welded all the strips together to form a sheet, the size of the stone, of white papyrus. Once the process was completed, older boys, apprentice papermakers, came and dislodged the sheet, taking it away to the drying trestles, where it had to be carefully watched and removed after it had dried but before it began to turn yellow in the sun. In another part of the factory, the sheets were glued together to make large rolls, or cut into smaller pieces for letters and shorter documents.

Huy had taken the job after ten days of waiting hopefully for word from Merymose. Then, the emptiness of his purse and the bareness of his kitchen had forced him to find work of any kind. Confronting Nubenehem with his problem, she had introduced him to another customer of the City of Dreams, an elderly papermaster with flaccid skin and a bald pate ringed with long, dank hair. This man, who told Huy that he only went to the place to drink, never having had a problem when it came to finding a girl, was looking urgently for somebody to work on his paperbeating team as one of his men had died suddenly from river fever. Huy knew something about papyrus, having spent most of his life writing on it, and had managed to convince the man that he knew how to make it, without giving away too much of his true background. He had been taken on.

At first, as he worked, he had reminisced pleasantly to himself about the smells and the texture of paper and ink, and about the pleasure of opening a new roll of papyrus, laid out as far as there was need on soft leather spread over a wooden writing desk; then mixing the ink powder with water, and the nervous moment of dipping the brush to make the first signs — to load the brush just so, in order that the ink would be absorbed by the paper before it could run down it. He remembered the floggings which, when he was a student, had followed the botching of a papyrus. Now, after thirty days at this backbreaking and endless task, he realised why. But his fellow workers were happy and prosperous. Demand for their product was unceasing, and their labour was steady and safe.

Its dullness stifled Huy’s heart, and he began to question the sense of feeding his belly at the expense of his mind, though such noble sentiments could hardly be his to indulge. He thought of Merymose, and wondered how he was progressing, with time running out as the embalmers pressed on with their task. He had not returned to see Taheb, partly out of pride, partly out of uncertainty. At their last meeting a line had been reached, and despite the urgings of his senses at the time, he was not sure that they wanted to cross it. At the same time he was puzzled by her silence, after such friendliness. Was she thinking as he was? Was each of them waiting for the other to make the next move?

Ten more days were to pass before the longed for interruption to Huy’s humdrum existence occurred. For some time now he had not been aware of being followed, and he knew, too, that no one had searched his house in his absence. Every day when he left for work, he would leave objects such as a scroll or a limestone flake, or his
kohl
-
pot
, a certain measured distance from the edge of the table on which they lay, and from each other. However carefully the house might have been searched, those distances would have changed. They never did. Huy put it all down to his regular job. Perhaps the authorities thought that he had finally knuckled under. It occurred to him that a full belly was not all he had his tedious employment to thank for.

One evening, however, as the never-failing north wind freshened, rustling the tops of the
dom
palms as he walked back to the harbour quarter, he had the impression that someone was dogging his steps. To make sure, he altered his usual route, ducking down alleys no wider than a donkey’s girth, slipping across little squares where five ways met. The streets of the harbour quarter were quite unlike the regular, broad thoroughfares of the rest of the city. This part of town had grown up organically, defying and outgrowing any order the town planners may once have tried to impose, and Huy knew it intimately. Yet he was unable to shake off his pursuer. Finally he gave up the attempt, and took the most direct way back to his house. He was almost there when he heard the sound of running feet behind him, and turned to see Merymose coming towards him.

‘Thank you for the guided tour,’ said the Medjay. He looked tired and drawn, but his mouth was still a determined line.

‘It was you? I’d have thought you’d have made a better job of it.’

‘I wanted you to know someone was following you, so that I could be sure you’d lead me a dance. That was the only way I could check that no one else was on your tail.’

‘Why?’

‘I’ll tell you inside. I shouldn’t be here, and I certainly shouldn’t be talking to you, but I have no option.’

Once seated in Huy’s living room, Merymose relaxed, but only a little, and he could not remain in his chair long, but kept getting up and pacing the narrow space between the front door and the rear wall. 

‘First of all, I should explain why you heard no more from me after you came to see Iritnefert’s body. Somebody must have reported the meeting, because I was summoned to the priest-administrator’s room at the palace the next day for a tongue lashing. Something along the lines of loss of professional dignity, enlisting the aid of socially undesirable persons in official business. I was lucky to keep the case.’

‘Have you made any progress?’

‘I haven’t been allowed to move. I wasn’t able to talk to Ipuky myself. I wonder if that would have helped. All I have been able to find out is that he was a remote father. After the mother’s departure, he lost interest in the girl, turned over her upbringing to one of the house matrons. She was severe, used to have Iritnefert whipped for the slightest misconduct. The girl grew up without love.’

‘That is much.’

‘That is all. There is no clue to follow. And now I am no longer in charge.’

Huy looked at him. ‘Who is?’

‘Kenamun.’

Huy knew the man by sight and reputation. In temperament he was not unlike Surere, a career official who had dedicated himself to climbing to the top of the power structure, though he had chosen the priesthood as his channel. He was as inflexible in his allegiance to Amun and the old gods as Surere was to the Aten, and during the reign of Akhenaten he had fled to the oasis of Kharga to escape death. His loyalty had stood him in good stead after the restoration, and he was now a commissioner of police for religious conformity — a post which did not prevent him from working in any other area which Horemheb, through the king, saw fit to appoint him to.

‘When did this happen?’

‘Yesterday.’

‘Do you know why?’

Merymose sighed. ‘There has been another killing. They begin to think that it is the work of a demon. But how? There is no violence. Not a mark on the body.’

‘Who was she?’ 

‘The youngest daughter of Reni, the Chief Scribe.’

‘How old was she?’

‘She would have been fourteen at the time of the
Opet
festival.’

Huy looked grim. ‘And how was she found?’

‘The middle sister found her by the pool in their garden. The family also live in the palace compound. She was naked, laid out with as much care as if Anubis himself had done it.’

‘Did you see her yourself?’

‘Yes. Reni ordered that the body shouldn’t be touched and sent a servant directly to me. I should have reported it first, but I thought I could always plead urgency if I was disciplined again, and I couldn’t take the risk of being denied access.’

‘Did you talk to Reni?’

‘Yes. He’s an intelligent man, but his heart was darkened by his daughter’s death, and there was nothing he could tell me. His house is large, and his children are old enough to be free, though all still live under his roof. He and his Chief Wife dined alone at sunset, then he went to his office to work. He didn’t see any of the children that evening, except the oldest girl, who is eighteen and unmarried, and acts as his secretary. The middle sister discovered the body when she came home at about the sixth hour of night.’

‘How many children are there?’

‘Two surviving daughters, and two sons.’

‘When did he summon you?’

‘Soon after. I went immediately, as I said.’ Merymose looked troubled. ‘I reported the killing as soon as I left them, leaving a man there and asking them to touch nothing; that was about the ninth hour. Then I waited for orders. At about the second hour of day I was told that Kenamun would be leading the investigation. Of both killings.’

‘With the same time limit they gave you?’

The Medjay smiled wearily. ‘That threat has now been lifted. Even they can see that there must be a connection between the deaths.’

Huy did not reply. He knew Reni well, as he was the only scribe who had held high office both under Akhenaten and the new regime. It was certain that he had bought his freedom by betraying former colleagues. He had been farsighted enough to recant before Akhenaten’s death, making a discreet escape from the City of the Horizon by barge at night with his family. Once he had arrived at the Southern Capital, he had proclaimed his loyalty to the old gods loudly and publicly, disowning the Aten and throwing himself on the mercy of the priests of Amun, who even then were growing bold as the revolutionary pharaoh lost his grip both on reality and his empire.

‘I read your heart,’ said Merymose. ‘Do you read mine?’

‘The connection is too slender.’ But Huy’s thoughts raced. The daughters of two high officials, both of whom had survived the change of regime — both of whom, depending on your point of view, could be seen to have betrayed Akhenaten. ‘In any case,’ he continued, ‘I do not see how I can help you. You said yourself that you are taking a risk by meeting me.’

Merymose paused before replying, and when he did so he was awkward. ‘I do not know why I even trust you, but I have no men trained to use their hearts in the way you are able to as a gift of Ptah. You seem to know your craft instinctively.’

‘Taheb must have been very warm in her praise.’

‘I have listened to you twice now myself.’ Merymose stood up and made for the door. ‘Look out for me first. I will go if no one is there.’

‘You cannot make a habit of coming here.’

‘I will ask Kenamun if we can engage you — professionally. He is more broad minded than the priest-administrator; and he wants to succeed in this. How much better to engage someone to help who cannot claim official credit for himself when the matter is solved.’

‘You give me little encouragement.’

‘You will be paid, Huy. In any case, you were not born just to make paper.’

‘I don’t know what I was born to do. I don’t know that it matters.’

‘Perhaps your true profession has found you. It is something that happens.’ 

Huy paused before replying. ‘I have a question for you.’

‘Yes?’

‘What did you do during the Great Criminal’s reign?’ If he was going to work with Merymose, they both had to reach a position of trust.

Merymose’s face hardened, and it was a long time before he answered.

‘I was in the garrison at Byblos. When Aziru sent his Khabiris against us, finally, we had been under siege for three years. In that time the Great Criminal sent us not even one reply to our requests for help. We were starving and reduced by disease. Typhus. Have you ever seen the effect of that? It was a far cry from the golden court of the City of the Horizon.’ For a moment he paused, the bitter lines around his mouth deepening. Then he continued.

‘When the Khabiri attacked we were powerless against them. They are desert raiders. They slaughtered the men and the children, and took away the women. As I was an officer, they devised a special treat for me: they raped my wife and my ten-year-old daughter in front of me, three of them to each, sticking their penises into each of the gateways. Then they used their spears on them. They threw me from the battlements into the sea, but the rocks were merciless and did not kill me, though I have never longed for death so much as I did then. But a man must wait until Osiris calls him.’ Merymose fell silent again.

‘My
Ka
decided that I must live. I swam down the coast, carried by the current. When I got ashore I stole a small fishing boat and sailed it to the Delta. I joined the Medjays in the south, and served at Napata, before they posted me here.’