The King's Man (28 page)

The physician Seneb had accompanied Huy on his many visits to the Delta, doing his professional best to alleviate the worst of Huy’s headaches and fatigue. Now all that was left were the monthly reports to arrive from the many overseers Huy had appointed. He returned to the palace exhausted but relieved that from now on all he had to do was keep a finger on the pulse of the complex he had created. He had sent three boxes of scrolls covered in Paneb’s precise script to Mahu for the King’s information and had then crawled carefully onto his couch, eyes throbbing, skull feeling as though it would burst, and the familiar nausea associated with intense pain roiling in his stomach.

He did not get up for two days. He slept almost constantly through the first and had wanted to resume his palace duties on the second, but Seneb would not allow it. “Besides, as you know, Queen Iaret goes to her tomb in ten days, Great Seer, and only the most pressing business of government is being dealt with,” he said. Huy had been about to drink the fresh grape juice Tetiankh had brought. Putting the cup carefully back on the tray, he sat still, waiting for the physician to leave. Then he summoned Amunmose.

The chief steward bustled in at once. “According to Seneb, you’re supposed to stay on your couch today, but you might as well be up and have Tetiankh dress you. The Lady Tiye is waiting to see you, tapping her foot and bothering Paroi, and both Their Majesties will be here later this afternoon. Mayor Heby asks for an evening visit. You were away for the celebration of your Naming Day on the ninth of Paophi. He and your nephew Ramose want to bring you a gift. Paneb has a letter for you from Thothhotep.”

Huy hushed him with an impatient gesture. “You’re giving me another headache. Tell me about Iaret. All I received was an official notification of her death from King’s Personal Scribe Mahu. What killed her?”

Amunmose tutted. “There were the usual fevers in the harem during the Inundation. Iaret succumbed rather quickly. A pity, really. Rumour had it that the King was about to name her second wife.” He turned to the door. “If you don’t need me, I’ll continue with the inventory of the household’s goods. Mutemwia wants everyone in Weset by the end of Mesore, so Paroi and I have only a scant four months to get everything done. Less, really—all the general holidays get in the way. No servant will work then. Who do you want to see first, or will you get dressed and come out? I must say, you still look very unwell.”

“I’ll speak with Tiye. Thank you, Amunmose.”
Iaret succumbed rather quickly
. Huy mentally shrugged off the implication of those words.

The girl entered immediately and, dragging a stool to the couch, bowed briefly to Huy before sitting down. “I’ve missed you in the Office of Foreign Correspondence, Great Seer. I’ve known that you’ve been in the palace occasionally, but then you’d be gone again. I’ve needed to talk to you. I love my parents, but to them I’m a child, a pupil, a light dabbler in the weighty affairs of government until my interest wanes, and their only worry seems to be that I may somehow fail to live up to my position as a Queen. I can’t speak to them of my fears. If I try, they just become more anxious. Queen Mutemwia invites me to share my confidences with her. She’s beautiful and gracious, but very powerful. I’m afraid of her, of what she might do with whatever I tell her, and that makes me awkward in her presence. Ever since you made me apologize to Captain Perti, I’ve respected you. I trust you. I’m glad you’re here for me to run to. I suppose you want to know all about Iaret.”

You can still surprise me, little one. Your arrogance remains, and your self-will, but already you are determined to do more than simply fulfill your duty. You may not use those words to describe the ambition to yourself, but you have the seeds of a sane intuition that will serve you well in the years to come. Atum, you chose well for Egypt
. “I’ve been told that she died of fever,” he replied carefully, “that it was particularly virulent this year. And what of Queen Neferatiri, the late King’s Chief Wife? I’ve heard no word of her since she was returned to the harem. Did she survive?”

Tiye grimaced and rolled her kohl-rimmed eyes. “That dried-up old prune? What demon could ever be bothered to infest her with a fever? She’s nearly thirty years old, after all! She petitioned the Regent to allow her to retire to an estate she owns outside the town of Nefrusi somewhere. I think she invests in the crops from the famous date palms around the city of Khmun. Mutemwia gave her permission. Anyway, Amunhotep would never marry her. She’d probably be unable to produce a Horus-in-the-Nest.”

“Iaret?” Huy prompted.

Tiye fixed him with a direct stare. “So you haven’t heard the rumours. That perhaps I poisoned her, or conjured against her out of jealousy. The Queen told me not to respond and the gossip would soon die away, but it’s been very difficult for me to hold my tongue. Gods! I do get tired of not being able to blurt out whatever I like.” She crossed her legs and lifted her shoulders up to her ears in a purely childlike gesture that set her golden earrings swinging, then she folded her hands together and rested them demurely on her lap. “But I can do just that when I’m with you, can’t I, Uncle Huy?”

Huy nodded. “And did you poison Iaret, or conjure against her?” he asked gently. “Ma’at would not approve, not at all, but I would understand.”

“Understand and keep my secret, but absolutely not approve either!” The smile that lifted the downturned corners of her hennaed mouth beamed out. “I didn’t like Iaret and I know that the King didn’t like her either, even though she was going to be his second wife. She complained about everything. But I swear before Amun himself that I did her no harm. The fevers began early. Queen Mutemwia ordered me removed to the harem at Mi-wer by the lake for my safety, but I begged her to let me and my mother go to Father’s estate instead. So that’s where we went. I was very bored. You were away, the tutors weren’t allowed near me, and Father wouldn’t let me enter the palace to attend either the morning audiences or the daily discussion of the dispatches. I didn’t see the King for several weeks.”

Something in her tone alerted Huy. “You missed him. You’re discovering his many qualities.”

“Hardly.” She made as if to run her fingers through the sheen of her dark red hair, felt the golden links of her circlet, and held an orange palm up to Huy instead. “I haven’t spent enough time with him for that. When we are together we argue, but he seems to like it. He laughs and doesn’t get annoyed. No, Uncle Huy. I like the shape of his eyes and the fullness of his lips and how deft his hands are, how they betray no hesitations. If I told my mother those things, she’d twitter with delight and talk about the physical pleasures of marriage.”

“I won’t twitter, but I’m pleased. I’ll be attending May tomorrow morning to hear the dispatches. How is your study of Akkadian progressing?”

“Very quickly.” She rose and smoothed down her sheath. “May’s scribe continued to come to Father’s house and I had nothing else to do but learn those symbols. Plain, aren’t they?” Leaning forward, she kissed Huy’s cheek. “I feel safer now that you’re here,” she said, and went out, a thin, still slightly awkward figure bearing herself with a dignity that Huy, with a pang of protective affection, realized he hadn’t seen in her before.

After the noon meal he slept, and woke feeling almost well again. He had Tetiankh bathe and dress him, noting more sharply than ever before the body servant’s swollen knuckles, the fumbles he tried to hide, his slowness in standing after tying Huy’s sandals. On impulse Huy caught his hand. “Tetiankh, your responsibilities have multiplied since coming here. I require your attention far more often than I ever did in the more relaxed days on the estate. I would like Amunmose to find an assistant for you—unless, of course, you want to retire.”

“Retire, Master?” Tetiankh frowned, and Huy knew that he had been correct in his offer. There was no shock or indignation in the man’s response. “It’s true that I’m not as capable as I used to be. I need more rest than the pace of your life allows, but I’m proud of my privileged position as your body servant. I was angry when Physician Seneb took away from me the preparation and administration of your poppy. It was at the command of Queen Mutemwia, you know.”

“I had suspected as much.”

Tetiankh withdrew his hand. “I have kept the secrets of your bedchamber for years, Huy. The care of your personal belongings and especially your body has been my sole vocation since the Mayor of Hut-herib deposited me on your estate. I do miss those happy years. I miss the Lady Ishat. So many memories, Master! You are quite right—I ought to retire. Part of me longs to return to the peace of the estate, but I hate the thought of abandoning you into another man’s keeping. I will stay if you will allow me to choose an assistant and train him myself. You are relieved, I see.”

Huy hugged him, ignoring his recoil against such a breach of propriety. “I am relieved. Selfishly so. I ought to have given you this choice before we moved here. Now find my gold and carnelian earrings, Tetiankh. The King will be arriving at any minute.”

Once seated in his reception room, Huy called for Paneb. “I have time to hear the scroll that arrived from Nekheb. Read it to me, Paneb, and don’t sing it. I don’t approve of the accepted monotone taught to scribes.”

Unperturbed, Paneb broke the unstamped wax seal and unrolled the papyrus. “‘To my dear Master, greetings,’” he read. “‘Know that I have considered the request that I return to your employ with both longing and dismay. My mind often strays to the day you approached me in the heat and dust of the marketplace and changed my life forever, and the desire to rest once more under your kindly wings is strong. However, the dismay I would feel if I left Anhur is greater than that desire. I take flowers and food offerings to him almost every day, and I sit outside the entrance to his tomb and talk to his ba. I go into the goddess Nekhbet’s temple and pray for him. Thus I am comforted. Besides, there is much activity taking place just to the east of the town, at the mouth of one of the valleys where a desert route from the gold mines of the far south ends. A new shrine to Nekhbet will rise there. The white cord has been stretched and the foundations sunk. I have spoken with one of the architects named Hori. He says that he has met you. He tells me that the King and all his court will be moving to Weset soon, and Weset is only a few miles downstream from me. I yearn to see you then. Please forgive me. Your friend and servant Thothhotep, Scribe.’”

A day for unexpected memories
, Huy thought rather sadly, watching Paneb let the scroll roll up and set it aside, his face quite correctly bearing no expression.

“Do you wish to reply to Scribe Thothhotep, Master?”

Huy shook his head. “There’s no point. Thothhotep can be stubborn when she wants to, and she has good reason to stay where she is. I’m content with your proficiency, Paneb, and even if Thothhotep had accepted my plea I have quite enough work to keep three scribes busy. Get ready to note down any salient points of my conversation with the King and Queen Mutemwia. They will arrive at any moment.”
I feel suddenly restless
, Huy told himself as Paneb melted into a good scribe’s place of anonymity.
It’s been years since I drove a chariot, but today I want to feel a set of reins in my gloved hands, or a bow, or even the heft of a well-balanced spear. I’ll have Ba-en-Ra or Sarenput go to the noble Yuya and arrange something for me tomorrow
. Huy knew that his need for movement was a response to the unwanted surge of memories filling his mind, as though the sweat of his body might dilute them, force them to flow back to where they came from.

Behind him, Amunmose was opening the doors and around Huy his servants were falling to their knees. He did so also, pressing his nose to the reed mat under him and stretching out his arms in worshipful submission.
Arbiter of my fate
, he thought as he saw her tiny jewelled feet come close. He was not addressing the King.

In the evening, he greeted his brother with joy. They embraced fondly and at once settled themselves knee to knee in the soft lamplight of the reception room. Huy took his nephew Ramose’s chin and smiled into the boy’s alert face. “So, Steward in the Mansion of the Aten at Iunu,” he teased, giving him the title Mutemwia had granted him, “are you giving your mother Iupia any more grey hairs?”
How different he is in every way from his half-brother the Vizier
, he thought as Ramose grinned back.
Everything about him is captivating
.

“I do hope not, Uncle. I’m doing well at school and that pleases her. I’m learning everything I can about the Aten so that when I reach my manhood at sixteen and go to Iunu to take up my tasks there I may serve the Regent well.”

Huy looked at him curiously. He himself was fully aware that Mutemwia had given Ramose the appointment so that she could have a spy among the Aten’s priests. The King’s father had been well on his way to angering both the Atum and Egypt’s saviour god Amun by detesting Amun’s priests and openly preferring to worship the sun in all his hypostases, particularly Ra as Aten, the light as distinct from Ra as heat. Fortunately, Thothmes the Fourth had died before the cosmic balance of Ma’at had been put in true peril, and Mutemwia was determined to restore the correct equilibrium. Did Ramose know what his loyalty to the Queen would entail?

“Speaking of my twelfth Naming Day, you forgot it.” Ramose sank to the floor and settled his back against his father’s legs. “The first of Athyr, remember? We didn’t forget you, though, Uncle. We have a gift for your fifty-first Naming Day. I passed it to Amunmose. You can examine it later. Anen, what are you doing? Come and sit beside me.”

The younger boy, who had been earnestly talking to one of the guards, approached Huy, who rose at once and bowed. Tiye’s brother lowered his head politely. “Great Seer and Scribe of Recruits.”

“Noble Anen.”

The child pursed his lips and cast a sidelong glance at Ramose. “I’m a Prince now, the Prince of Ipu. My father holds so many titles that he gave that one up. Ay will inherit all the others one day.” He waved Huy back into the chair with a carelessly natural gesture and slid down beside his friend. Graceful and delicate of body, he reminded Huy of Thothmes, who had been small for his age at school but had made up for his size with a sturdy wiriness. This boy, Huy reflected, seemed overly fragile. He could easily understand Ramose’s protectiveness.
There must be at least two or three years between them
, his thoughts ran on under cover of the general conversation, but judging by the Prince’s comments his intellect was as sharp as his sister’s.