The King's Man (13 page)

“I forgive you! I merely remarked on the colour of your eyes and the curve of your chin. Now go and play, both of you. Anen, you are welcome to my food and drink.”

“Thank you, Great Seer.” Ramose slung a nonchalant arm around his younger friend’s shoulders and the two of them wandered away.
He does resemble Tiye
, Huy thought, looking after them,
but it’s true that his features are more gentle than hers. What aristocratic company we peasants now keep, don’t we, Ishat?
She was listening politely to Iupia, but Huy knew by the silent tapping of one foot that she was bored. With a sigh he got up to rescue her.

As the afternoon wore on, Huy’s guests took their leave. Huy arranged to visit Heby as soon as possible and promised Thothmes that he would come to Iunu when he could. He was unable to make definite plans; he was never sure when the King might summon him. So far, although he was Amunhotep’s Personal Scribe, he had only been called upon to take dictation once and he wondered whether perhaps the title was supposed to be more important than the work itself. He saw everyone go with regret, went to his couch, and slept.

He was not summoned to dine with the King that evening. He assumed that the three members of the royal family were eating together in Amunhotep’s apartments. Returning from the bathhouse in the late afternoon, he told Tetiankh to put his jewellery away and find the simplest kilt he had. He was not sure why he had decided to See for Yuya’s daughter dressed very plainly. It had not occurred to him to try to impress her with his wealth or position; she had more of both than he. Nor was it an opposite attempt to show her that he was not intimidated by the child of Egypt’s most powerful official. He waited for her unpainted, his hair combed and braided but not oiled, reed sandals on his feet. His only adornments were the sa on his breast and the rings of protection on his fingers. These he never removed.

Full night had fallen by the time Amunmose ushered her into his office, a room now used mostly by his chief and under stewards and his scribe. “The Lady Tiye,” Amunmose said. “I have already explained to Paneb the task required of him during a Seeing. He’s on his way. Do you need anything, Master? Wine? Water?”

Huy had risen from the chair behind the desk and had bowed to the girl. She also was dressed simply in an unadorned white sheath that fell to her ankles, sturdy leather sandals, and no jewellery other than a small golden hoop circling one lobe. She looked demure and modest. Huy was sure that she was neither. Nevertheless, she had reverenced him with proper decorum and now stood just inside the door with her head bent and her hands clasped around a small pot in front of her.

“Bring a jug of water and two cups. Has Tetiankh prepared my poppy? Bring that as well.” The steward nodded and withdrew. Huy pulled his chair around to the front of the desk and placed a stool before it. “Please take the chair, Lady Tiye. The stool is for me.” The lamplight made gleaming bands across her cap of dark red hair as she came forward.

“Thank you, Great Seer,” she said easily, “and thank you for agreeing to See for me after my behaviour the other night. My father slapped me and made sure that I had no food on the following day. His punishment was just.” She held out the pot. “I know that it is customary for a petitioner to offer a gift on occasions such as these. Please accept this little cruse. It comes from the island of Keftiu and has strange fish called dolphins on it. I’ve been using it to hold my anointing perfume. I had it filled with ben oil for you so that you may add any perfume you choose. I hope no aroma of cardamom lingers. It’s the last scent I used.”

Huy took it reverently, running his thumb admiringly over the delicate tracery of blue lines obviously representing the Great Green, and the odd fish with their fat bodies and long snouts gambolling in the waves. It was a delicate, beautiful thing. Even firmly stoppered, the pot exuded the pungent yet pleasantly light tang of ground cardamom seeds. Huy bowed his thanks and set the gift on his desk. The girl settled herself in the chair, and after smoothing the folds of her sheath over her thighs she wound her fingers tightly together in her lap.
So she is not wholly an arrogant brat
, Huy thought, noting the tension.
She is able to feel insecurity, to be sensitive to her surroundings and those in it
.

“Do you often misbehave?” he wanted to know as he positioned himself on the stool so that he would be able to take her hand without strain.

She grinned suddenly and her fingers relaxed. “Quite often, Great Seer, but not always on purpose. Sometimes my brothers lure me into trouble. Anen is younger than I, but Ay is one year older. He leaves me to take the blame for our adventures because he knows how exasperated Father can become with me. It’s important for girls to refrain from competing with boys and to cultivate the modest habits of a good wife.” She sighed. “I’m nearly eleven, but Father already worries that I will grow up with behaviour unattractive to any suitor.”

“I met Anen in the garden today. It’s to your father’s credit that in spite of his concern he still insists on a good education for you.” Huy was surprised that she was so young. She had appeared to him to be twelve or even thirteen.

“I suppose so. I’m just as bored with my studies as my brothers are. Except for the history of Egypt—I like that.”

“And does your father tell you about the kingdom of Mitanni?”

Her startled blue eyes met his. “Mitanni? No. Why should he? We are Egyptians. My father says that everyone in the world wants to hold Egyptian citizenship and that we’re the most privileged people ever born. This”—she tugged at her hair—“the reddish lights in it, and the colour of my eyes are my only legacy from Mitanni.”

They were interrupted by a discreet knock on the door. Paneb entered, bowed to Tiye, and sank to the floor at Huy’s elbow. Crossing his legs and placing his palette across his thighs, he murmured the prayer to Thoth and began to burnish his piece of papyrus.

Tiye leaned forward. “Where is the divining bowl and the oil, Great Seer? The statue of mighty Anubis, Lord of the Bau and leader of the Sheseru of Horus? How can you work heka without those things?”

“I am not a hekau, Lady Tiye. I do not practise magic. Heka is one of the forces used by Atum to make the world, but when I See for someone I am not continuing that making as a hekau would do, nor am I using magic to fight magic, like to like. I need nothing to compel the gods to hear me. Atum shows me what I must see, and Anubis speaks to me.”

“Then you are indeed a hekau, higher than the King, who receives the power of heka when he is crowned?”

Huy was saved from answering by Amunmose, who glided in, placed a ewer of water and two clay cups on the desk together with a small vial, bowed, and withdrew.

Huy glanced down at Paneb. “Do you want to sprinkle water on the floor for Imhotep, Paneb? Are you ready?”

“I’m ready now, Master.”

Huy took one of Tiye’s hands in both his own. “I cannot predict any outcome,” he told her. “If I see your death, do you want me to tell you about it?”

Once again those cornflower-coloured eyes met his. “No, I don’t think so. Perhaps when I am much older. If you see it and tell me now, I will become fixed on it.”

Such wisdom in a little girl
, Huy thought. Reaching past her, he drank his drug in one swallow. The time was long gone when he reacted to its bitterness.

“You may close your eyes or not, as you choose,” he said, “but remain as still as you can. Let us begin.” On impulse he closed his own eyes. It had been many months since he had given a Seeing and he thought belatedly that he ought to have asked the King’s permission to do so, but it was too late now. The opium was spreading its own enchantment through his stomach, its warmth reaching for his chest and head. It felt good, but his attention did not stay on its progress through his body. Slowly he became aware of Tiye’s breathing, a trifle fast, a betrayal of nervousness, but regular. As he listened to its rhythm, a sound beneath it began to grow until it became the measured beat of drums. Had they been there all the time? Now there was the swift trilling of harp music and the wail of pipes. Huy felt himself lifted into it. A voice began to sing, impassioned, fervent, the melody a burst of worship, and suddenly Huy found himself in a temple he did not recognize, hemmed in by a crush of listening people. He was hot and uncomfortable. The air was hazed with incense. He could smell its sweet sharpness, the odour of sanctity, of praise rising with it to please the god. But which god? Huy, trapped as he was, could not glance around. All he was able to do was peer forward between rows of bowed heads to the area before the double doors of the sanctuary.

He recognized the King at once. Amunhotep was no longer a child. He had grown, filled out, his chest broad and glittering with necklets, his arms brawny as he held the crook and the flail out over the crowd, his jawline softened by cheeks that were still full.
Obviously he has reached his majority
, Huy thought.
Is this his final crowning?

“Why yes, it is, Great Seer.” The grating tones, instantly recognizable, came from the left. A pang of terror went through Huy, then faded. All the same, he was glad that the press around him made turning to the side difficult. The god’s breath was warm and moist on Huy’s left cheek. Its faint animal smell seemed blended with another odour, so foreign that Huy could not name it. “Perhaps it is the scent of the lotus petals drowned in wine and mingled with the taste of human adoration I’ve been drinking,” the husky voice went on. “In the midst of their fear they reverence me, proud Huy. They know that one day I will grasp their hand and lead them into the Judgment Hall.”

“Anubis.” Huy’s mouth had gone dry. He swallowed. “Whose temple is this? I have an impression of immense size although I can see little.” A hand fell on Huy’s shoulder. Out of the corner of his eye Huy saw a black forearm heavy with gold bracelets. The odour of wild pelt and myrrh now filled his nostrils.

“You are always surrounded by immense size and can see little,” Anubis said caustically. “But because I have better things to do than stand here all day, I will tell you. This is mighty Ipet-isut, Amun’s glorious home, and you are in the city of Weset, far—oh, very far—from the palace in Mennofer.”

“So Amunhotep chose to be crowned here so that all could see his alliegance to Amun. That’s very good.”

“Is it? Then why does he intend to name his new home on the west bank of the river the Palace of the Dazzling Aten?”

“The west bank? Close to the dead?” Shocked, Huy’s head jerked around. The god’s mouth was still open, the pink tongue quivering between white fangs, the black lips raised in a sneer. Yellow eyes, bright and feral, narrowed to slits as they met Huy’s own. The grip on his shoulder tightened.

“Perhaps if you had bothered to look further than the thrill of pride you felt under the admiring gaze of the royal child and his mother all those years ago, Amunhotep might have given glory where it is due when he named his bold new house.” This was blatantly unfair, but Huy let it pass. One did not contradict a god. “I am harsh but not unreasonable,” Anubis growled. “Why Atum chose you to steer the fate of this, his favourite land, is beyond me. You knew how threatening the improper worship of the Aten could become, how its elevation to a growing prominence over Amun resulted in an injured Ma’at. Did her wound not bleed in your presence? All you had to do, after you slunk out of Amunhotep the Second’s audience chamber like the coward that you are, was to pay attention to the fact that young Prince Amunhotep was spending too much time in the harem at Mi-wer, where he imbibed the Aten with his milk.”

“Mutemwia always sent him there to escape the illnesses of the children in the palace,” Huy broke in. “I was not prepared to endanger his life.”

“Oh. So it was a tussle between his health and Egypt’s, was it? No resolution came to you?”

This time Huy could not respond. He had known of Aten worship as a pursuit of royalty and nobles. Egypt’s ordinary inhabitants found the Disc too esoteric for their taste. The women of the harems, particularly the foreign wives, found the Aten a comfort. The Disc seemed to speak to a basic but crude religious commonality in every culture.

“Mutemwia,” Anubis mused. “Now where is that slender reed with the metal spine? Not standing behind the King anymore. Can you see her, Huy?”

All at once Huy’s range of vision became wider. The King’s mother was seated to her son’s right, but a young woman divided them. The young woman’s knees were together and her back was very straight under the sheath of cloth of gold covering her from neck to braceleted ankles. A wig of long black hair was mostly hidden by the golden vulture’s feathers cradling her face. Its head jutted imperiously above her forehead and its claws to either side behind each ear grasped the shen sign, symbol of eternity. Gold and lapis likenesses of the goddess Mut, Amun’s consort, swung from her lobes. Gold bracelets covered her forearms. A wide collar made up of layers of blue lapis and red jasper squares linked with gold hid her sheath from her neck to her tiny breasts. Huy drew in his breath. There was no mistaking the lustrous, heavily kohled eyes or the downturned mouth. She was gazing imperiously ahead, confidence displayed in every line of her, while the music seemed to surround the royal pair with an aura of sacred invincibility.

“Tiye!” Huy whispered. “I sensed that there was something about her. So she signs a marriage contract with Amunhotep and becomes Queen. This is Atum’s will for her? For them?”

The god’s hand was removed from Huy’s shoulder. “Patience, Seer. Let us move forward, shall we? Pay attention, for this is the gravest vision you will ever have.”

All at once the crowd around Huy began to melt away. He felt himself lifted and stifled a cry of fear as he found himself looking down on a vast sprawl of stone buildings, stelae, wide avenues lined with the likenesses of gods and kings, along which a colourful procession of white-robed priests and gaily dressed citizens came and went. He had no time to glance around at the city of Weset itself. He was being propelled forward at great speed, following the winding glint of the river, going north or south, he did not know which. The banks seemed to flow past and to either side of him in a blur of palms and green fields. Closing his eyes against a fit of nausea, he gritted his teeth, suddenly aware of arms around him and the odour of Anubis’s jackal skin in his nostrils. “The years move on beneath us, but we fly more swiftly than they,” the god said. His moist nose touched Huy’s ear. “Now what would the Lady Tiye like to see, do you think? Any rivals who might arise in the women’s quarters? How well she will age? What illnesses she will suffer before her death? But no. She does not want to know the day or the manner in which she will die, and you do not need to know. You yourself will have entered the Hall of Judgment by then. You created a dark path when you chose safety over truth and allowed Amunhotep’s father to mount the Horus Throne in his brother’s place. Egypt has been stumbling along it ever since. Now open your eyes and see where that path has led.”