The King's Man (7 page)

“I hear that you have already chosen a captain for your household guards,” she said. “Your nephew may be a harsh man, but he is an excellent Scribe of Recruits and has chosen well for you. Wesersatet will be disappointed. Perti shows much promise as an officer. Don’t be deceived by his youth—he is fully capable of protecting you.”

Huy gathered his scattered thoughts with an effort.
She has used red antimony for her lips instead of henna
, the voice in his head said clearly.
It makes her little teeth look very white. Everything about her is little, and delicate, and graceful, except for the eyes that dominate her perfect face. I want to pick her up and hold her close to me, feel her hair against my naked skin. She would be as light as an armful of feathers
.

“I have given him until tomorrow night to make his decision,” Huy replied, pushing the image away. “Then of course I must seek a glimpse into his future.” He turned to Amunhotep with relief. “If Your Majesty will give me a list of the building projects you wish to begin, I’ll consult with your Treasurer and Chief Architect.”

Amunhotep’s grin lit up his face. “Threaten them with a disastrous spell if they won’t give me what I want!” he joked. “Go to them in the morning, Uncle. Kha already has my list. In the afternoon we’ll visit Yey.”

“He doesn’t live in the palace?” Something in Huy’s voice must have given him away. Mutemwia’s glance at him was keen.

“He and his family have a house by the river in the northern suburbs,” she answered. “Are you homesick, Huy?”

You are the one who can cast a spell, not me
, Huy thought in the moment before he answered her.
I must force myself to maintain a distance between us so that I do not lose the ability to do the work you and your son require. That small detachment has been present ever since you first brought Amunhotep to my house, even though we became friends and allies. What is happening to me now? And why?

“I miss the peace of my estate and my servants miss its convenience,” he replied with complete honesty. “But Majesty, we will adapt.”

“So you will.” She studied him, her head on one side. “For some time to come His Majesty and I will need you close by. Be patient. Many changes are in our thoughts.” She rose. It was a dismissal. Standing and bowing, Huy left them.

The corridors were quiet, and empty of all save the motionless palace guards. Quickly Huy approached his own apartment, but before he reached it he could see the two young men sitting huddled uncomfortably on the tiled floor to one side of the double doors and one of his soldiers watchfully blocking the entrance. Seeing him come, the pair scrambled up and reverenced him several times before he came to a halt.

“Who are you and what do you want?” he demanded irritably. “Whatever it is, my chief steward Amunmose deals with domestic matters, and not this late at night. Come back tomorrow.”

One of them stepped forward. “Our apologies, Great Seer. Your chief steward quite rightly would not let us through your doors, but it’s difficult to encounter you. You are so busy on His Majesty’s business. We have both left scrolls of reference with Amunmose. He told us that we could wait for you here. I am Paneb, underscribe to Vizier Ptahmose.”

“And I am Ba-en-Ra,” the other put in. “Chief Herald Maani-nekhtef sent me to you. I had not met Paneb before this evening. We have been getting to know each other.”

They waited, eyes on Huy. In the new silence, he studied them. Neither was as young as the dim light of the passage had led him to believe. He judged them to be in their twenties. Paneb, the shorter and stouter of the two, had an air of steadiness about him. The gaze that met Huy’s own was calm and direct. Ba-en-Ra seemed entirely relaxed and confident, hands loose by his sides, his shoulders back. Huy noted that both of them had the remains of orange henna on their palms, and although the hour was late the linen of their expensive kilts was unstained. Both wore amulets. A red carnelian sweret bead rested on Paneb’s naked chest. Huy could just make out Thoth’s hieroglyph etched into the elongated curve of the object. Paneb’s name would be incised on it also. It was a logical protection for a scribe. Ba-en-Ra’s sinewy wrist was encircled by a series of golden hares chasing each other. The hare was a desert animal and as such was a symbol of regeneration, but everyone knew that it also slept vigilantly with its eyes open and was venerated for its speed. In spite of his weariness, Huy began to smile.

“Now, why should I hire either of you?” he said. “Give me good reasons before I look at your references.” They exchanged glances.

“To our great astonishment we discovered as we talked that we had each dreamed the same thing on different nights last week,” Ba-en-Ra began. “We were sitting in the reed marshes of the south, eating crocodile flesh. The meaning of such a dream is clear: we are destined to become important officials.”

“This was before our masters commanded us to seek your employment, Great Seer,” Paneb said quietly. “If you doubt us, then take our hands. The gods will show you the truth of Ba-en-Ra’s words.”

“Serving me will not always be easy,” Huy told them. “I require complete loyalty in my staff, even if a disagreement between myself and the King should arise. Are you here simply because the Vizier and the Chief Herald ordered it?”

“Yes,” Paneb answered at once, passing the small test Huy had set. “But the opportunity to join your household exceeds my wildest hopes and I believe I speak for this herald also.” He waved at Ba-en-Ra, who nodded briefly.

“Have you wives? Children?”

Paneb shook his head.

“I have recently signed a contract with my brother’s wife,” Ba-en-Ra said. “My brother died of a snakebite, and it is my duty to care for his family. They understand that a herald’s work often keeps him away from home for long periods. I have a reliable steward in charge of their welfare.” Huy found himself warming to this man, who understood and acted upon his responsibilities so selflessly.

“You are both nobles,” he commented. “I am not, nor ever will be.”

Paneb shrugged eloquently. “Nobility does not guarantee a life lived in the favour of Ma’at,” he retorted. “Noble or commoner, it does not matter as long as there is honesty and right-thinking.”

“A splendid sentiment,” Huy said drily. “Very well. Present yourselves here tomorrow evening for a Seeing. Now go.” At once they bowed and left him, walking together down the shadowed passage. Huy watched them disappear before turning to the door his soldier now held open.
I need both scribe and personal herald
, he thought as Amunmose greeted him and the door thudded closed behind him.
It seems that I must trust Ptahmose and Maani-nekhtef, two men I do not yet know, or struggle on without scribe or herald until I can make knowledgeable choices
. “I should read the scrolls before I sleep,” he said in answer to his steward’s question. “I won’t have time in the morning. What’s the matter with you, Amunmose?” He took the papyrus held out to him, his eyes on the other’s haggard face.

“I’m sorry, Huy. I’m exhausted,” Amunmose admitted. “I have control of a household in near chaos because my supervision doesn’t extend to the palace kitchens or the laundry or anything else involving the general running of this anthill. The soldiers come to me for their instructions. I need an under steward I can delegate to, more servants, a food taster … I need your authority to sort it all out before I collapse. And what about a permanent physician for us all? I don’t trust any judgment but your own.”

“Have you read these references?”

“No. And that’s another thing. Petitioners line up outside the doors, wanting to see you. Scrolls pile up from the gods know who and I’ve no permission to open them. We’ve been here no more than a few days and already it seems like hentis.”

“I’m the one who must apologize, Amunmose.” Weariness and a claustrophobic panic had seized Huy. “Early tomorrow afternoon I must visit a friend of the King’s, but afterwards we’ll try to establish some order out of all this confusion. Go to bed.”

In Huy’s own bedchamber, Tetiankh had turned down his sheets and was trimming the lamps. Huy flung himself into a chair. “Find me a lily perfume and anoint my couch and the walls with it,” he said as the body servant knelt to remove his sandals. “Do it every day until the jasmine has stopped flowering. We need a physician of our own, old friend. You already know your way about the palace. Recommend someone. And give me my poppy! My head is full of troubling images tonight.”

He was undressed, washed, drugged, and on his couch by the time Tetiankh found a quantity of lily perfume and began to distribute it carefully about the room. Gratefully Huy inhaled the aroma that reminded him of his mother Itu and the little house where he had spent his childhood. Deliberately he called the sunlit garden to mind, and Ishat slipping through the acacia hedge to play with him, and his father Hapu plunging his tousled head into the deep clay basin outside the rear door at the end of a day spent working in his uncle’s perfume fields. Yet the heavy blanket of opium stupor he relied upon to wrap itself around his mind seemed unusually thin this night. Itu’s perfume filled his nostrils, but it was Anuket’s innocent young face that blossomed suddenly, filling his inner vision, waking the ancient passion for her that had destroyed his peace for so many years. Long before her death he had been cured of it, but here it was again in all its distressing impotence. Even as he sank beneath the soporific influence of his drug and unconsciousness waited to claim him, he somehow knew that an old love was not the cause of the mental picture being presented to him. Nor was it a grasping for the familiar in the bewildering ocean of new circumstances. It was something else, something simpler and yet more threatening, but his tired consciousness refused to examine it. That night he neither stirred nor dreamed.

3

IN THE MORNING, HUY ATTENDED
the daily audience, once again standing behind Amunhotep’s throne with Mutemwia, doing his best to take careful note of each administrator and the matter of business he brought. This time he was able to recognize and name many of them. Ptahmose, Vizier and Fanbearer on the King’s Left Hand, he had already met and liked. Amunmosi, Fanbearer on the King’s Right Hand, little more than a boy, seemed something of a dandy, with his expertly made-up face and faultlessly pleated linen, the golden threads woven into the many braids of his gleaming wig, the gems adorning his chest, hands, and feet. Amunhotep greeted him affably, sharing with him some private joke that indicated a close and easy relationship between them. Huy made a mental note to acquaint himself with the Fanbearer. As Amunmosi turned back into the crowd, he flashed Huy a spontaneous smile of such sweetness that Huy found himself grinning in answer. Treasurer Nakht-sobek gave a short report on the amount of gold recently arrived from the mines in Kush. The King listened to him in a stony silence and Nakht-sobek’s obeisance when he had finished was mildly defiant. There was little more.

Amunhotep dismissed them all with obvious impatience, got up, and took Huy’s arm. “Nakht-sobek will be working in his office until the noon meal. I have already sent Maani-nekhtef to find Chief Architect Kha and have him waiting for you with the Treasurer. Make them bend to my will, Uncle Huy! Am I not supreme in Egypt? Nakht-sobek’s refusal to open the Treasury to my demands borders on blasphemy! I am eager to begin beautifying the houses of the gods. What’s wrong with that?”

Huy glanced about. No one but the Queen was within earshot. “Amunhotep, you know exactly what’s wrong,” he said, deliberately using the boy’s name rather than one of his titles. “You are behaving like a spoiled child who kicks and screams because he cannot get his own way. I will ascertain whether or not your demands are reasonable, but I suspect that if they had been so, Nakht-sobek would have been pleased to accommodate you. Do you think that your uniqueness gives you the right to bully your administrators, the men chosen to serve Egypt for their wit and knowledge? Do you think that Ma’at approves of your high-handed behaviour? Menkhoper your tutor and Heqarneneh your nurse taught you better. So did I.”

Amunhotep had gone white under his face paint. Holding his furious gaze, Huy was still able to glimpse the rigid tendons in the royal wrist as the King gripped the back of the gilded throne. Mutemwia said nothing, yet Huy knew that her hidden tension matched his own.

“Majesty, do you know how many uten and deben’s weight in gold dust and nuggets rest in the Royal Treasury under Nakht-sobek’s excellent protection? Lapis, jasper, ivory, turquoise, ebony, silver?”

Amunhotep’s eyes became angry slits. “No.”

“But your Treasurer does. Could it be that he is doing his duty in the caution with which he guards it?”

“But it’s mine. All of it. Everything in the Treasury. Everything in Egypt. Every cow, every sheaf of corn, every ell of linen, every man, woman, and child—mine. Even you, Great Seer, belong to me.” He folded his arms. “My power is supreme. And all I have to do is summon Wesi, the Head Bowman of the Lord of the Two Lands, to have you shot full of arrows.”

Huy stared at him in shock. Now the boy was trying to grip his upper arms, but his hands were shaking. So was his outward breath.
This is not about me or the Treasurer
, Huy realized suddenly.
Something else is wrong
. He met Mutemwia’s gaze. The Queen raised her eyebrows.