The King's Man (27 page)

Dragging his sheet with him, wrapping it around his waist, he went to the door and opened it. Tetiankh was already asleep on his mattress just outside. The rest of the apartment was dim and quiet. Huy crossed his reception room and, coming to the garden entrance, opened it and stepped outside.

At once, even before Captain Perti turned and bowed, Huy could smell the increased humidity. The river was rising and would bring with it annoying clouds of mosquitoes as well as the blessed assurance of yet another deposit of fertile silt to replenish the parched fields. Fleetingly he reminded himself to keep a very close eye on the health of the children in the harem as he answered Perti’s reverence. “Don’t you ever sleep?” he asked his guard.

Perti smiled and jerked a thumb at his companion soldier. “Our watch ends just before dawn, Master. Then we are relieved. Are you unable to rest? Shall I summon your steward?”

Huy glanced swiftly into the peaceful dimness waiting for him. “No, thank you, Perti. I’m neither hungry nor thirsty. I want to wander among the flower beds for a while. Without an escort.” Perti nodded his understanding reluctantly. Tying the sheet more tightly to his body, Huy went forward.

Very soon the semi-darkness closed in behind him, the air softly benevolent on his skin, bearing the faint scent of winter flowers. There was no wind. The trees stood motionless, dim pillars ending in darker tangled masses partially obscuring Huy’s view of the stars as he looked up. The moon sat at the half, its grey light barely reaching the earth. Huy knew that soldiers from the Division of Amun stood at intervals along the surrounding wall, but they were a distance away. The palace gardens, of which this was a small section, were vast. Huy walked slowly on, his troubled thoughts moving from the work he and Paneb had done that afternoon, to an aging Tetiankh, and back again.

He was scarcely aware of a slight rustle in the shrubbery to his left until it came again more loudly. With a lightening of the heart he came to a temporary halt, not wanting to interrupt some nocturnal creature enjoying the night even as he was. He was about to move on again when he saw something emerge from the denser blackness between the boles of two tall tamarisk trees and come slinking towards him. At first his mind refused to recognize it. For one long second he stared at it stupidly as it came shambling on, its yellow eyes fixed on his face, its rear legs bent in a manner that Huy, even in his growing alarm, knew to be entirely natural. About eight paces away from him it stopped, sank onto its lean haunches, and emitted a series of barks that sounded eerily like high-pitched laughter.

Terror seized Huy. He tried to turn and run but found himself unable to flee.
Perti, you must have heard those unearthly shrieks
, he called silently, desperately.
Help me!
But no sound of hurrying men came from the direction of the palace. Again he tried to force his legs into retreat, but they remained rooted to the grass. The hyena went on staring at him impassively. There seemed to be no message in its gaze, no threat. It appeared to be waiting. Gradually Huy’s fear began to subside.
There was one in my estate’s garden long ago, hunting mice among the cabbages
, he remembered.
Khnit had traded for it in the marketplace, wanting to fatten it up for servants’ food. I made Anhur get rid of it. But there was another. It came to me as I had disembarked from my barge and was preparing to enter the house, and it came close to me and sat, even as this one is doing, and it seemed to be warning me, reminding me. Of what? My duty to Atum, to the understanding of the Book of Thoth? I have not thought about the Book for many weeks, nor of standing before the mighty Imhotep, Seer and Physician, in the Beautiful West, while my lifeless body was being taken to the House of the Dead in Hut-herib. I had been struck in the head by Sennefer’s throwing stick and had toppled into the lake fronting Ra’s temple. I drowned but did not know it because at once the Judgment Hall was behind me and the Paradise of Osiris all around. Imhotep had a scroll across his knees, but he was stroking the hyena nestling beside him. He asked me then if I would be willing to read and decipher the Book of Thoth, and I, innocent twelve-year-old child that I was, agreed. Then Atum breathed new life into my corpse and I woke on an embalming slab in the House of the Dead. The Book of Thoth. Forty-two scrolls on which the creator-god Atum dictated all laws pertaining to the creation of the cosmos, the world, nature, man and the animals, magic, and the next world
.

Standing there in the middle of the night, unable to stir, eye to eye with a desert scavenger that had somehow crept through the outskirts and then the heart of the city, evaded the palace soldiers, and finally made its way almost to his door, Huy knew how long it had been since he had given any attention to the task his younger self had agreed to undertake.
If Atum has sent you to threaten me, it will do no good
, Huy spoke to it dumbly.
When has there been time for me to ponder the contents of the sacred Book? There will be even less opportunity now that I’ve been appointed Scribe of Recruits. Do to me what you must, you unclean eater of offal. I will not resist you
.

Yet something was nagging at him, something that should have been obvious, and he cast about in his mind for what it might be. He saw himself outside his previous home, watching Anhur’s men try to catch the first hyena that had appeared. He saw the second, its black eyes gleaming at him a moment before it slid under the closed gate of his domain and disappeared. Black eyes. But the hyena blinking in the brilliant light of the Beautiful West had watched him lazily with yellow eyes. Here, even through the uncertain light, he recognized the same golden shine. “It is you, isn’t it?” Huy whispered. “Atum has sent you to me, but why?”

As if in answer, the hyena rose and began to pace unhurriedly towards him. Its eyes never left his face. Once more Huy tried to tear his feet free of the ground, but the effort failed.
Very well
, he thought resignedly.
I will accept this beast as your emissary, Great Neb-er-djer, Lord to the Limit, and endure whatever punishment you have decreed for me. Lately the Book of Thoth has become a fleeting memory, a single facet making up the woven cloth of my past. For that I am sorry
. Nevertheless, he could not repress a shiver of fear as the animal came to a halt right before him. Now he could smell it, an odour both sweet and pungent that forcibly reminded him of something else, something he could not place. He clenched his fists and waited. The hyena opened its mouth. Gently it took one of Huy’s tightly curled hands and began to open his fingers with its teeth. Its limpid eyes closed, and Huy could have sworn that it was purring like a contented cat. He held his breath. Then it began to lick his palm, its warm black tongue quivering with what Huy recognized as pleasure. Amazed, he dared to touch the top of its head once with his other hand. The bristles between its ears pricked him. Presently it closed its mouth and sat back. For the last time its eyes met Huy’s in a mild, almost friendly glance, then it turned and loped quickly away.

Huy gave in to a fit of trembling. He looked at his palm, still wet with saliva, and that same aroma rose from it to his nostrils: orchard blossoms, a whiff of honey, and underneath the sweetness a very faint stench of infected flesh. He wanted to wipe his hand on the sheet tucked around his waist, but somehow knew that he must not. Tentatively he lifted a foot. It came clear of the grass. Weakly, as though he were recovering from a long and debilitating disease, he began to retrace his steps. High up in the palace wall he saw the lamplight from his bedchamber shining dully through the slitted clerestory window to be rapidly lost in the darkness beyond. He could not make out the forms of Perti and the guard, nor hear any of their conversation.

Black tongue
, he thought as he went.
Egypt’s hyenas have black eyes and pink tongues. Atum sent that denizen of the Beautiful West to let me know that in spite of my neglect of the Book of Thoth, he is satisfied with me. I am proceeding within his will, and all I need to do is continue the work assigned to me
. All at once his step faltered. Suddenly he knew where he had inhaled the beast’s peculiar smell before. The sacred Ished Tree exuded it, the Tree of Life planted in Iunu at the dawn of creation by Atum in the place where the temple of Ra would later rise. Every High Priest of Ra had been responsible for tending it since then. Huy had happened upon it by accident. He had been a very young student at the temple school, had become lost on a forbidden foray into the area between the temple itself and the high wall enclosing the whole precinct, and had found himself in the Tree’s holy presence. So the hyena had indeed come to him from the blessed country beyond the gauntlet of the Judgment Hall where every heart was weighed. Strength began to flow back into Huy’s body. He was smiling as he greeted his soldiers, entered his apartment, and, carefully avoiding a still-slumbering Tetiankh, reached his couch. At once he fell into a deep, satisfying unconsciousness.

IN THE FOLLOWING SEVEN MONTHS
, Huy fixed his attention almost exclusively on strengthening the defence of the Delta and the Horus Road and reorganizing the divisions of the army and navy in that area. Occasionally he consulted the King and the Regent regarding his decisions, but on the whole they left him alone to work. He soon discovered that the most powerful men in charge of Pharaoh’s military had been appointed by the Osiris-one Thothmes the Fourth, Amunhotep’s royal father, in return for some favour to the Horus Throne or to assure their loyalty. Huy understood why his nephew had not dared to interfere with these arrangements, but he himself had no such qualms. He was loved by the King and trusted completely by the Regent.

On his assuming the tasks of his new assignment, Mutemwia had made it plain that he was allowed access to her quarters at any hour, and every courtier knew it. There had been a clamour of sycophants and boon-seekers outside Huy’s apartment door at the start, but both Perti and a sharp-tongued Amunmose had dealt with them. In any case, Huy was seldom there. He and Paneb often ate and slept in the office of the Scribe of Recruits. Huy’s heralds Ba-en-Ra and Sarenput moved constantly between the city and the forts and garrisons of the Delta and the Horus Road, and Huy himself spent many weeks with the officers of both the army and the navy in spite of the Inundation that rose, turned Egypt into a vast lake, and subsided once more. Huy scarcely noticed it except as a nuisance to be negotiated. Free to make what appointments he wished, Huy named Nebenkempt Overseer of All Ships of the King, giving him supreme control over the navy. Amunhotep-Huy’s new father-in-law had been a Naval Troop Commander for some time and had captained the royal ship
Kha-em-Ma’at
, Living in Truth, under the last two kings.

By the end of Pharmuthi, the last month of the spring season of Peret, when the crops in the fields were thick and green, Huy was able to present a series of reports to the King of which he was justifiably proud. A new force of military police now patrolled the northern coast to repel any attempts by the Lycian pirates to infiltrate the Delta. They also protected the customs houses along the coast and at the western entrance to the Horus Road, where both goods and foreigners entered Egypt. All merchandise, especially tribute coming in, that was not consigned to His Majesty was taxed. Huy, appalled at the greed and laxness of the officials appointed to oversee this essential service, had dismissed them all and filled their posts with junior officers from the army who were answerable in turn to their superiors. The influx of easterners continued steadily. Some of the foreigners were herdsmen, but many had come to Egypt with their families to work and were distributed to assist common farmers. Mutemwia had appointed Kha-em-hat as the King’s Personal Scribe in Huy’s place. He was a cheerful, capable young man Amunhotep had known since they were children together in the harem. Everyone called him by his nickname, Mahu. Huy had been ordered to See for him. Indeed, Huy had decided to Scry for every man he himself wanted to place in a position of authority. Consequently he often moved through the days bearing not only the burden of his post but also an appalling pain.

He soon discovered that Egypt’s vassal states to the northeast were divided into three administrative areas governed by Egyptian nobles responsible for Canaan, Kumidu, and Simurru, an area encompassing Amurru along the coast almost as far as the land of the Amorites, who abutted the kingdom of Mitanni. Huy had met none of them; he had begun his tour of the Delta while Ptahmose journeyed farther east. Huy could easily see that the efficiency of those three governors was vital to Egypt’s northern security. Accordingly he requested authority over them from Mutemwia, who granted it without hesitation. For some time they had reported to Khaemwaset, an aristocrat living on an estate just outside the town of Per-Bastet, close to the start of the Horus Road. Huy found him affable, knowledgeable, and healthily wary of any unverifiable information coming out of the east. Khaemwaset readily agreed to send Huy regular and comprehensive accounts of his charges.

So at last Huy felt satisfied with the reforms he had initiated. The defence of the Delta was strengthened. The Delta estuaries were closely watched. Taxes and customs duties had been reformed. The Horus Road was now heavily patrolled, and the means to arbitrate any disputes arising between native landowners and the herdsmen needing the lush grassland had been established. Huy had even answered an appeal from a contingent of foot soldiers patrolling the Horus Road. They had asked that their numbers be increased as a deterrent to the Nemausha, a nomadic people roaming the eastern desert and occasionally deciding that the animals and other possessions belonging to travellers along the Road should be shared with them.

The more changes Huy was forced to make, the more he wondered at his nephew’s incompetence. It was true that many of the orders he sent out with Ba-en-Ra or Sarenput would have exceeded the limits of an ordinary Scribe of Recruits’ mandate, that because of his closeness to the King and Mutemwia the power of his influence was greater than Amunhotep-Huy’s had been. All the same, there was much the younger man could have done but that he had overlooked. Huy did not know how Amunhotep-Huy was faring as Egypt’s new Vizier. Nor did he care.