The King's Man (58 page)

It was the first time she had referred to the successful culmination of his lifelong search for the Book’s ultimate meaning. He understood that it was far less important to her than the continued stability and prosperity of her son and thus Egypt herself, and he wondered how she might regard the true purpose of the heb sed ceremonies.
One day I’ll tell her
, he promised. Catching up the dun-coloured cloak, he laid it across her arm. “I will make no attempt to harm Prince Amunhotep, Majesty,” he said reluctantly, “but you’re wrong if you believe me incapable of smothering him in his cot. He carries within him a disease that will one day render Ma’at and Egypt’s greatest divinities impotent. I will face the Judgment Hall leaving my greatest reparation undone. Therefore I beg you to beseech forgiveness for me from both Amun and Atum himself.”

A peculiar expression Huy could not decipher flitted across her exquisite little face. “The gods will not desert you, and you have nothing to fear from the Empress.” Rising on the tips of her toes, she put her hands to either side of his neck and kissed him directly on the mouth, enveloping him in a cloud of her perfume. Shock drove him to step back, and a full, generous smile lit up her face. “I am always available to assist you in your duties, mer kat,” she finished, walking to the door and rapping on it. “Come and tell me when you’ve solved the riddle of the hyena.” Her words seemed to shrink the enigma to the status of a minor conundrum, and she had closed the door behind her before he was able to complete his bow.

Kenofer was waiting for him as he walked into his bedchamber. The oil in his bedside lamp had been replenished, the debris of his hurried exit removed, and wordlessly Kenofer held out a vial of poppy. Huy drank it at once. Crawling onto his couch, he ordered Kenofer to raise the reed covering on the small window. There was no hint of dawn in the pressing darkness, but a puff of wind stirred the sheet Huy was holding and the flame inside the thin curves of the alabaster lamp fluttered briefly. The hyena was settling itself in the dense shadows beyond the range of light. Huy distinctly heard the scrabble of its claws against the tiling as it lowered its scrawny hindquarters onto the floor and immediately turned its black gaze to him. “Are you Khatyu or Habyu?” he murmured, feeling the opium enclose and ease the familiar nagging ache in his stomach and begin to soften his emotions. “Kenofer, I’ll be summoned to the palace early tomorrow. Or this morning,” he said drowsily. “You might as well set out one of my kilts of the twelfth grade and whatever jewellery will be appropriate before you go back to your pallet.” He did not hear Kenofer’s reply. He was already wandering beside the river, watching one frog after another emerge miraculously from the murky water and hop up onto the bank beside him. Under the influence of the drug there would be no nightmares.

It was not Kenofer who woke him but a dishevelled Amunmose, shaking him unceremoniously until he opened his eyes and batted the man’s arm away. “Chief Royal Herald Senu is here, Huy,” Amunmose said. “He was ordered to deliver an official summons to you at dawn. There’s a confirmation. The scroll is signed by the King himself.”

“I was expecting it.” Struggling to clear his mind, Huy left the couch. “How long have I slept?”

“Not long. Kenofer’s gone to heat your water in the bathhouse. I’ll send Senu away, get Rakhaka up to prepare you some food, then I’ll wash myself. Do you remember how difficult it used to be to persuade young Amunhotep to get off his couch in time for the noon meal? Not any more, apparently. I’m too old for any of this.” He paused at the door and turned. “There’s no trouble from the Empress already, is there, Huy? Is that why Her Majesty the Queen came to see you in the night? Should I be packing up the household for a flight into Rethennu or Zahi?”

“No, I don’t think so. I’ll take an escort, though. Please tell Perti.”

“He’s on his pallet outside the door. He’s awake.”

Mutemwia said that I have nothing to fear from Tiye
, Huy’s thoughts ran on as the last vestiges of sleep blew away under Kenofer’s scrubbing.
She’s very eager to see Tiye returned to an inferior place in Egypt’s day-to-day governmental affairs, and I understand why, but would she minimize the danger to me in her keenness to have me take up my duties as mer kat again? I’d have done so soon in any case. According to her, Tiye has shut herself up with her son and is screaming at everyone, but it’s only a matter of time before she calms down and appears in the audience hall again. Mutemwia wants me to return to the palace before the Empress’s rage is spent and she regains control of herself. Mutemwia adores her son. Does she fear that one day Tiye will have him assassinated and so wield the total authority of a Regent on behalf of the one Prince who is destined to survive? If so, it means that in spite of her sneers she believes my vision. Goddess as Regent, not as wife? Mutemwia knows what it’s like to be a Regent, the stresses and temptations of the position. She and I have been friends since the King was a baby. She is an extremely astute woman who sees the crevices in Amunhotep through which an ambitious wife might creep. But Tiye loves Amunhotep. Of that I have no doubt
.

“Electrum or the purple gold, Master?” Kenofer asked, and Huy sighed and came to himself. The sun had risen fully by now but still hung low in the east, its first rays sending thin morning shadows snaking across Huy’s fields, and he knew that he must hurry. Dressed in a kilt woven of gold-wrapped linen threads, his face meticulously painted, his waist-length hair braided and entwined with thick gold bands each portraying the feather of Ma’at, and shod in leather sandals studded with golden ankhs, he was frowning at the display of jewellery laid out on his couch.

“I really don’t care,” he snapped, “but I suppose that, seeing I may be going straight to the audiences once the King has finished with me, it had better be the purple gold.” He held out his arms for the wide bracelets shot through with traces of purple and bent his head so that Kenofer could hang the linked double plumes of Amun on his chest. Purple gold was too expensive for any but the wealthiest Egyptians to own. The native craftsmen, brilliant though they were, had never been able to reproduce whatever composed the reddish tinge in the jewellery. Kenofer was handling it with reverence, but Huy’s eyes rested on the two rings he had not removed since Henenu the Rekhet, controller of demons, had made them for his protection.
Perhaps they are what’s keeping the hyena at a distance—the Soul Protector and the Frog of Resurrection. Now why didn’t I remember that I wear the Frog on my finger, and wonder why it allowed the nightmares? Because the hyena is indeed Habyu, not Khatyu?
Kenofer had finished setting the cascade of tiny scarabs into Huy’s earlobe and was holding up the copper mirror. Huy waved it away and left the room.

He and Paneb were carried to the palace in separate litters as before, Paneb with the scrolls the Queen had left tucked into his battered leather pouch. Perti and twenty of Huy’s soldiers surrounded them both, and Huy’s Chief Herald Ba-en-Ra strode in front to keep the way clear. There were not many people about to hear the herald’s warning. Huy kept his curtain closed against the early sun, his mind as much as possible on what Mutemwia had told him so that he might remain unruffled by any thought of the coming interview. If the King ordered his arrest, there would be nothing Perti and his men could do. Of course Perti knew it, but the sound of his cheerful voice as he chatted with one of his officers gave Huy a fragile sense of security.

At the entrance to the palace, Wesersatet and a contingent of royal guards were waiting. Wesersatet bowed as Huy left his litter. “Greetings, mer kat. You are expected. Please order your escort to wait. Refreshment will be provided for them.” His words and features were politely impersonal. Nothing in his manner betrayed the escapade of the night before. He strode towards the forest of pillars fronting the reception hall and at once the guards surrounded Huy and Paneb as they followed him. Huy did not need to be shown the way to the King’s apartments. Usually a guide would be summoned for a newcomer and the Commander-in-Chief would disappear to attend to other duties. It had been a long time since Huy had become lost in the maze of the palace, but today Wesersatet did not even slow his pace and the soldiers gave no sign of dispersing. The small groups of courtiers already drifting along the corridors quickly gave way as Wesersatet swept past them. A few recognized Huy between the sturdy bodies around him and bowed hesitantly. Huy knew what was in their minds, and in his also.
Am I a prisoner or not?

At the wide double doors to the royal quarters, Nubti left his stool. He smiled and reverenced Huy, and Wesersatet and his men moved to either side of the passage, but they did not disband. Huy glanced at Paneb. The scribe’s demeanour was as imperturbable as ever. Nubti opened one of the doors, called Huy’s name, and waved the pair of them inside. The door closed behind them with an echo.

Amunhotep was still in his nightshirt, sitting slumped in a chair, his head covered with the white cap of strict custom. Both hands were resting in large bowls of water, one to either side of him on small tables. A servant was busily massaging one bare foot. The other, still bearing traces of henna, was stretched out on a stool. The King’s face was slightly swollen. Kohl was smeared across one temple, but his other eye was clean although bloodshot. To Huy he looked as though one of his eyes was missing. A man Huy had not seen before stood patiently off to one side, a large jug in his grasp. The air in the huge room was heavy with the scent of rosemary and a haze of myrrh smoke. Huy and Paneb went to the floor in a full prostration, and immediately Amunhotep grunted that they should get up. “Paneb, go over there and be quiet,” he said. “Uncle, you’re late. Come closer so that I don’t have to shout. My head is threatening to burst and every part of my body aches. I should not have left my couch, but before the festivities last night my Mother the Queen requested that I speak to you before the hour of audience this morning.”

Huy stepped up to him. “I’m sorry you’re ill, Majesty,” he offered.

Amunhotep grunted again. “I’m more hungover than ill,” he acknowledged surprisingly. “Nubti, get rid of everyone except Huy and Paneb, and send Nebmerut in. He should be hovering outside in the passage. And you, Neferronpet,” he snapped at the man Huy did not recognize, “what kind of a butler are you? The last thing I need is sweet date wine. Bring me sermet.” He turned back to Huy. “Nothing really helps but cold water on my wrists and myrrh smoke,” he said as the room promptly emptied. “Often sermet takes the headache away, but I don’t particularly like beer. Sometimes a massage to my feet makes magic. But not today.” He lifted his hands from the bowls of water. Huy picked up a linen towel and, wrapping the King’s hands, carefully dried each finger. Amunhotep watched him. “You’ve always loved me, haven’t you?” he said quietly after a while. “Ever since I spent the flood months with you and Anhur when I was a young boy. I love you too, and I trust you. In fact, I think that you and my Mother the Queen are the only two people I trust completely.”

There was a knock on the door that reverberated throughout the vast space and Nubti entered followed by a man Huy identified as Seal Bearer and Chief Royal Scribe Nebmerut. Without being told to do so, Nebmerut joined Paneb on the floor, greeted him, and set his palette across his thighs.

Amunhotep ignored the small disturbance. “I have no doubts at all that your gift is from Atum himself and your visions speak true,” he went on. “The things you saw in my little son’s future filled me with fear and despair. How does any Incarnation dare to repudiate the god who is his father, and moreover send masons to every temple and monument and stela in Egypt, and even beyond, to hack out his name and thus make it as though he never existed? I had a terrible fight with Tiye. She accused you of wanting the Horus Throne for yourself and your nephews. She called you a charlatan and vowed to have you arrested and imprisoned to starve until you were dead. Then she ran into the nursery.”

Another knock on the door boomed. Amunhotep winced in pain. Butler Neferronpet advanced with a clay jug and a silver cup. Pouring a draft and bowing, he passed it to Amunhotep, who drank thirstily. Huy took the jug, set it on one of the tables, and curtly dismissed Neferronpet. After a swift glance at the King, the man went away. Huy dropped the linen he had been absently holding into the water and sat back on the stool.

“I went to talk to my Mother the Queen and then I drank all night,” the King continued. “I wanted oblivion, Huy. I cannot kill my little son, but neither can I pretend that I did not hear the prediction. To imagine Tiye actually marrying our Prince goes far beyond the borders of sanity, let alone the edicts of Ma’at, but your voice followed me into one jug of wine after another. I couldn’t escape it. If Ma’at is wounded, Egypt will be unprotected from drought and famine and disease and—who knows?—maybe even from invasion and military defeat.” He pressed the tip of a finger against his right eye, where he was obviously in pain. “Therefore I have given the one command open to me,” he said miserably. “Prince Amunhotep is now confined to the harem. He may not leave its precinct for any reason at all. Ever. Chief Harem Steward Userhet and his successors will answer with their lives if he goes free. My royal seal is on the injunction and the grounds for it. I have also ordered that Tiye be removed from the harem and only allowed to visit the Prince with my permission. It has all been so hard and so horrible, Uncle. Have I done the right thing?”

Huy longed to take him in his arms, to cuddle and rock him as he used to do when Amunhotep was young. Instead, he gathered the King’s hands into his own once more. “You did the right thing, the only thing possible without breaking a law of Ma’at,” he said quietly. “You were wise. Tiye will eventually accept your decision. I’ll return to my duties as your mer kat at once if you are agreeable. And Amunhotep, never doubt that you may trust me with your life.” Huy felt his fingers squeezed and then released. Amunhotep nodded.