The King's Man (52 page)

There was another silence, this one fraught with tension. Thothmes was frowning, his eyes still on Huy’s face but his gaze unfocused. Absently he picked up one of the napkins. Huy thought he was about to wipe the sweat from his face, but he unfolded it on the desk and began to smooth it out slowly, obviously unaware that he was doing so. “Is it possible that Anubis showed you a lie? Forgive my presumption, Huy, but you’ve told me of occasions when what you saw differed from what came to pass—not in the healings you’ve performed under Anubis’s authority, and not in the ultimate fulfillment of fate, but in details that have slightly altered future outcomes. I’m thinking particularly of my mother’s death.” The thin hands on the white linen were stilled. Thothmes’ glance at Huy became direct. “The very first Seeing that took you by surprise when we were still nothing but boys happened when you touched Nasha, remember? You saw a grim destiny for her in the Street of the Basket Sellers—but it was my mother who ended her life under the wheels of a cart in that street. Why?”

“I don’t know. I’ve tried to solve the puzzle many times, to no avail, and Anubis will not help me. Every time it creeps into my mind, I’m filled with doubt. Atum cannot be a deceiver. Neither can Anubis. Therefore something within me causes the distortions.” A bleak and all too familiar uneasiness began to creep into his mind, bringing with it an echo of Anubis’s voice mingled with the sinister laughter of a hyena. Sitting straight, he forced it away and met Thothmes’ brown eyes.

“Is it possible that parts of the vision are false?” Thothmes pressed. “Perhaps the Empress will not be called Goddess, or the city in which you found yourself will turn out to be a future Weset, changed and grown.”

“Perhaps,” Huy replied unwillingly, “but those changes are not minor aspects of the Seeing. It was so real, Thothmes! All of it!” Abruptly he left the chair and began to pace. “I must negate it, take deliberate aim against its inevitability, conceive a plan that will keep Ma’at safe and Egypt fruitful.” He rounded the desk and came up to his friend, leaning over, feeling an uncontrollable grimace of distress contort his features. “It’s my fault. I was too ashamed to tell you. The need to test my power resulted in a marriage that set all this in motion, and Anubis warned me that my last opportunity to expunge the worst of my mistakes—my cowardice before the King’s grandfather and his father—is now. But I cannot undo what has been done, and only one solution has become apparent to me. If I act on it, I put myself irretrievably beyond a favourable weighing in the Judgment Hall.” Stepping away from Thothmes, he lifted the jug of beer and upended it directly into his mouth. “I think I’m damned, Thothmes,” he finished, setting the jug back on the desk and slumping into his chair. “Have you any advice for me?”

“I dare not presume to do any such thing,” Thothmes said huskily. “All I can do is urge you to pray, and I will also. Would it help you to go to Khenti-kheti’s temple at Hut-herib and fast and live in his outer court until he gives you an answer? Or appeal to Ra under whose shelter we spent our school days?”

“Perhaps, but I don’t believe so. The coming disaster is mine to avert. The gods know that I alone created it. They will not help me.”

“But Huy, there has to be a way out other than a deliberate crime against Ma’at! No god would allow any of us to be backed into a corner from which there is no escape!” He raised his hands stiffly before him as though he could push the whole matter away with his strength.

“You don’t ask me the nature of the solution eating at my mind.” Huy looked down at his own open palms. “I don’t need to tell you, do I? What else would prevent me from acceptance into the Beautiful West? I’m so angry, Thothmes. At Anubis and his arrogance, at my own hubris, at Imhotep for hiding the consequences of my decision to read the Book when I was too young to understand what I was doing. I should have refused the offer and stayed dead!”

Thothmes did not respond. He closed his eyes. A tense quiet fell, during which Huy struggled against a rush of self-pity. The ache in his back had intensified, and all he wanted was to be lying face down on a massage bench with the coolness of scented oil spreading over his skin and his body servant’s firm touch. When Thothmes spoke, it was in a thin whisper. “The heb sed metamorphoses a King’s mortality into divinity, Huy,” he murmured. “Body, ka, khu-spirit, bau, shadow, everything—all the seven parts making up our being, including that of every pharaoh—transformed, every corruption invisibly cleansed away. A god need not worry about damnation.”

Huy stared at him. “You’re suggesting that I use the heka of the heb sed myself so that I may be recognized as a god? It would be the ultimate act of sacrilege.” Horrified, he found himself near to tears. “I can’t do it, Thothmes,” he said thickly. “I mustn’t even think about it. Imhotep came to be worshipped after many hentis because he heard and answered the prayers of those who asked for his help. He earned the godhead bestowed on him. How could I ever achieve such majesty?”

“Many believe you already have,” Thothmes said coolly. “You’ve brought healing to dozens through your gift of Scrying. You’ve comforted many more by giving them a glimpse into their futures when all seemed dark to them, my darling Ishat included. As mer kat, your policies both within Egypt and throughout the empire have resulted in wealth and justice and peace. You have no idea how truly great you are, do you, Huy? Will the removal of one threat to the future of this country negate every good you’ve done in the eyes of the gods? I don’t think so.”

Huy got up with difficulty. His knees felt stiff and obstinate. “Murder, Thothmes. The murder of a child. There—I’ve said it. What will all my achievements mean against that, when my heart is placed on Ma’at’s scales? I love you for daring to make the proposition you did, but it’s something I must not even idly contemplate.” He walked to the door. “Now I need my drug and a long sleep before the evening meal. Thank you for sharing my load, dear friend.”

Thothmes left his chair and, coming up to Huy, hugged him briefly. “Let’s hope you’re able to put the matter to Amunhotep in a way he can understand. Whatever happens, you have a home here in Iunu with us. We’ll eat together later.” Rapping sharply on the door, he waited until it opened and then went out, Huy behind him.

Reaching the flight of stairs leading to his quarters, Huy paused and glanced up. The number of steps suddenly seemed formidable. Sighing, he began to climb.

He stayed with Thothmes for a further three days before deciding to return to Weset. With the river gradually sinking, the flow of scrolls from the officials under him had begun to ebb. He could have travelled north to Hut-herib and spent some time in Khenti-kheti’s temple and a night or two on the little estate close to the town where he and Ishat had once lived. He had kept it because he loved it. The memories he had made there, both happy and sad, no longer troubled his emotions. He knew that he could sleep well and safely in his old bedchamber, but the servants with whom he and Ishat had shared those years were either dead or in retirement, and the house and garden were being cared for by a couple he had never met. For the first time those inevitable changes reminded him of his age. He had not cared about such a thing before. His many years were not evident in his body, nor had they dimmed his eyesight or deafened him. But all at once, in the space of a few days, his fingers and his spine had woken him to the fact that he was about to turn sixty-five.

On his last morning in Thothmes’ house, he was sitting on the low stool in his bedchamber, already dressed and kohled against the sun, so that Kenofer could comb and braid his long hair. Nasha was with him, still enveloped in a rumpled white sleeping robe, sipping from a large cup of purple grape juice and walking to and fro while they talked amicably together. Kenofer’s ministrations were no more than a familiar background to their conversation until the body servant exclaimed softly and Huy could no longer feel the comb on his scalp. He looked up. “Is something wrong, Kenofer?”

“No, I suppose not, Master,” Kenofer replied slowly. “It’s just that I’ve never seen a grey hair on your head before. Now there are several where there were none yesterday.”

Nasha came close. “He’s right, Huy,” she said after a moment. “Three of them by your right temple. It’s about time! You can begin to henna them like the rest of us if you wish. Here.” She picked up the copper mirror on his cosmetics table and held it out. “See them for yourself.”

“No, thank you. Make the braids, Kenofer, and then finish packing my belongings. We have a long, hot journey before us.” Nasha replaced the mirror and wandered out into the passage and Kenofer began to separate Huy’s thick tresses.
Three grey hairs
, Huy said to himself.
So I have almost completed the tasks Atum assigned to me and now he doesn’t need me anymore. I have been his tool since the age of twelve. Will he allow me an easy slide into death when I have discharged my last obligation? And what of the hyena? Will it become an agent of retribution against me because of what I am condemned to do?

Kenofer’s knuckles brushed the nape of his neck and he almost cried out. “Master, your skin is very cold,” Kenofer said. “Perhaps you should consult the noble Thothmes’ physician before leaving Iunu.” Huy shook his head mutely. Kenofer obviously knew better than to press the issue. He too fell silent.

Huy sent a message to Under Steward Paroi that he was returning to Mennofer and to ready the remaining two barges, one scroll to the King with the news that he had begun to wend his way back to Weset on the river, and one to warn his staff on his Weset estate. Then he ate a hurried meal with his friends. Thothmes asked him diffidently if he would like to visit Ishat’s tomb and pray there before he left. Huy declined.

“I have no doubt that she has attained the Beautiful West,” he replied harshly. “She has no need of my petitions to the gods on her behalf. Nor will she ever become a vengeful ghost that must be propitiated with prayers and offerings. She waits for you, Thothmes. It’s your voice she longs to hear now. Besides,” he went on more quietly, “I hope to visit you again before I must stand outside the tomb where she lies and watch you being carried inside it also.”

“So you plan to outlive me, do you?” Thothmes laughed at these words he had intended as a mild joke.

Huy smiled thinly. “Believe me, I beg the gods to send me into the Judgment Hall before you or Nasha so that I won’t have to suffer your loss, but I strongly suspect that my selfish desire will remain unfulfilled.”

He deliberately began to speak of Thothmes’ children. The talk became light again, but later, standing at the foot of his ramp while the barge rocked behind him, he pulled Thothmes’ small body against his own and held him tightly. For many moments they clung together. Then Thothmes stepped away.

“I know, Huy, I know,” he said. “We share the same thought, but I don’t want it expressed aloud. If you’re forced to flee from Weset, come here, but I have the oddest feeling that the King will understand everything you must say to him. May the soles of your feet be firm. I have always loved you.”

“And I you, Thothmes. Don’t stay out here in the sun.”

Both of them knew that this was a final goodbye. Huy kissed Nasha, walked along the ramp, and, crossing the deck, went straight into the cabin. He did not look back.

Although the southward journey against the current took far longer than the journey north with it, it was still not as long as a trek on the edge of the water would have been. Once deprived of Thothmes’ company, Huy’s thoughts began to revolve once more around the coming interview with the man who called him Uncle, and he found himself unable to control them. Even when he managed to wrest his mind free, the image of a hyena took their place, so that between dread and repulsion he was tormented. When he slept, his dreams were nighmarish. The world around him during the day—great sheets of murky water, the tops of drowned palm trees, villages baking in a heat that seemed to contain an evil sentience—took on an aura of hostile otherworldliness that distressed him almost as much as the visions haunting him at night. For the first time in years, he requested larger doses of poppy than usual from Kenofer. The drug pained his stomach and took away his appetite, but at least it allowed him more pleasant dreams when asleep and a welcome disconnection from reality when awake. He was surprised—he had not really expected any relief from his dismal state. Normally all the poppy could do was marginally reduce the ache in his head after a Seeing and dull the stabs of anxiety that plagued him almost daily when faced with the load of crushing responsibilities thrust upon him at Weset. Kenofer cautioned him that the supply might run out before he reached home, but Huy pointed out that there were physicians at almost every town along the river and obtaining more would not be difficult.
Atum is doing this
, Huy told himself as he sat on the deck beneath a canopy, his back against the cabin’s wall and a flagon of water to hand.
He is returning me to the early days, before I became inured. He is preparing me for what I must do
. The thought was no comfort, but at least, under the continuing influence of the poppy, it did not distress him.

The barges reached Weset on the first day of Mesore. The river was at its lowest. Huy barely glanced at his naked poppy fields as the litter-bearers carried him home. With a mixture of reluctance and pleasure he leaned out to see the whitewashed walls of his house gleaming in the sunlight. Before the litter was set down, Paroi was bowing and offering his hand. Huy took it, and stood.

“Well, Paroi, coming home is a fine thing,” he said. “Obviously my message arrived safely.”

“Welcome back, Master.” Paroi’s eyes quickly scanned Huy’s face. “Yes, we’ve been expecting you. So has His Majesty. There’s a scroll from the palace as well as several from the various ministries. I opened only the one from Chief Royal Scribe Mahu. Will you eat while your belongings are unloaded and unpacked?”

Huy could see that the man wanted to say more but was tactfully biting back the words. Huy said them for him. “It has been a difficult few months, full of worries and surprises, and I’m very tired. I’ll eat in my office, Paroi. Send me Paneb when he arrives and tell Kenofer I’ll want to get onto my couch as soon as possible.”