The King's Man (9 page)

He chose to be adorned sumptuously for this important encounter, standing with arms outstretched as Tetiankh wrapped a yellow, gold-shot kilt around his waist and secured it with his belt of gold links. His face was painted, his eyes blackly kohled and sprinkled with gold dust. A droplet of gold sat in one earlobe. His glorious earring of Ra-Harakhti swung heavily from the other, the god’s golden hawk feathers inlaid with blue faience, the sun-disc on his head a mounded circle of yellow chalcedony. Gold talons brushed Huy’s oiled shoulder. A single golden band encircled his head. Tetiankh had braided his hair in one long plait that rested against his spine. His naked chest was bare of any ornament save the protecting sa amulet his friend and mentor, the exorcist Henenu, had made for him herself.

Huy thought of her as Tetiankh slipped onto his fingers the two rings he always wore. Henenu had made them also, the Soul Protector with its hawk’s body and man’s head, and the golden Frog of Resurrection with its deep blue lapis eyes. Huy could see her quite clearly in his mind’s eye as he sat so that Tetiankh could slip on his jewelled sandals. Her name, Henenu, was a secret shared with very few. If the demons she had controlled and exorcised had learned it, they could have used it against her. Huy had never divulged it to anyone. In public she was the Rekhet, a woman of power and magic. With a spurt of nostalgia for a time long gone, Huy imagined her walking towards him, a smile lighting her seamed face, the cowrie shells sewn into her sheath and woven into her grey hair clicking, her magic wand held firmly in one capable hand. She had understood him, his uniqueness, his resentful struggles against the tasks the creator-god Atum required, his anguished love for Anuket, now dead. Comforting and reproving him, advising and disciplining, she had loved and guided him. He missed her a great deal. Every year in the summer month of Payni, when the full moon heralded the Beautiful Feast of the Valley, he joined the crowds flooding Mennofer’s cemeteries with offerings of food, oil, wine, flowers, and prayers for their ancestors, and begged Henenu for her continued blessing. He made the short journey to his parents’ tomb at Hut-herib also. At such times he thought of the noble Amunnefer, far to the south at Weset, his partner in the poppy trade, crossing the river with his offerings to the place of the dead where his wife Anuket lay coffined in the dark.

“Huy? Master?”

Huy sighed and looked up. “I’m all right, Tetiankh. Call a palace servant to escort me to the main concourse.”

His litter-bearers were waiting as he emerged between the soaring pillars of the palace entrance flanked by two of his soldiers. The sunlight was dazzling and momentarily blinding on the pale stone that ran away from his feet to the glittering canal on his left and the great wall, beyond which the central city lay. Two other litters and a gaggle of servants and guards were milling about. Huy glimpsed the King in one of the litters. Mutemwia was about to lower herself into the other one. Huy was suddenly glad that she would be making the visit with him.
Nevertheless, I must make a conscious effort not to rely on her too much
, he told himself as he found his own cushions and heard the captain of the King’s escort give the order to move.
Her influence is subtle, gentle, but it is also remorseless and difficult to resist
.

Her litter had drawn abreast of his and her curtains were open. She smiled across at him. “A fine day for a small outing, Huy, don’t you think? It’s a pity that our reason is so sad. I have the greatest esteem for the noble Yey. He’s dying, and I hope that your presence may bring him a measure of consolation. He was born in Mennofer, but his father was a Maryannu warrior of Mitanni, brought back to Egypt by His Majesty Osiris Thothmes the Third as booty. He very quickly proved himself proficient enough with arms to become a royal instructor. We leave Mitanni alone now, of course, in exchange for a yearly tribute, and the members of Yey’s family are proudly Egyptian.”

Huy filed away the useful information, searching his memory for anyone from the time of Osiris Thothmes who might have been Yey’s father. But he himself had been a young student at the temple school in Iunu. He reminded himself to ask Thothmes. Might it have been the haughty Kenamun, Foster Brother and favourite of Osiris Amunhotep the Second? Huy tutted in annoyance at himself. The matter was not at all important. Glancing to Mutemwia’s litter, he saw that her curtains were now closed.

The small cavalcade had turned directly north, crossing the concourse in the narrow gap between the end of the canal and the palace’s front wall, and then continuing on past the precinct of the temple of the goddess Neith on their left and the noisy northern district of the central city on their right. They entered the northern suburbs, moving along wide tree-lined streets where high walls to either side were regularly interspersed with narrow guarded entrances through which Huy glimpsed lawns and shaded gardens. Soon they swung east and reached the river road, where the guards called a warning to clear a way through the busy crowd, and before long they were veering in under a small pylon to be greeted by a wide expanse of grass and flower beds riotous with vivid blooms. The surface of a large pool bearing open waxen white lilies and the closed spears of the morning’s blue lilies rocked gently. Another, smaller pond held nothing but the tall, white, pink-tinged blooms of many lotuses. Huy caught their rich, heady scent as his litter went by. Sycamores shadowed both bodies of water invitingly. Acacias clustered by the path. Tall tamarisks flanked the estate’s protecting walls to north and south, their tiny leaves shuddering in the afternoon breeze.

The litters came to a halt. Huy alighted to face a short portico of six white pillars and open double doors in the white wall beyond. A steward stood bowing on the threshold as Amunhotep and Mutemwia walked up to him. Huy followed. Another servant had risen from his perch in the shade of the pillars. He was holding two leather leashes. One was attached to the jewel-studded collar of a tiny grey monkey squatting on the ground and watching the small procession with wary interest. It bared its sharp white teeth to Huy in the parody of a smile as he passed. Involuntarily he shuddered, remembering the ivory monkey his uncle and aunt had given him for a childish Naming Day long gone. It could clap its paws together when a cord in its back was pulled. Huy had hated and feared it from the start, and in the end he had taken it out into his garden one night and smashed it against a stone. Ishat, dear Ishat, had picked up all the tiny pieces that had lain like shards of bone under the moonlight and disposed of them. Huy had never asked where. The other leash was attached to a goose that hissed at him and tried to nip his ankle before the servant pulled it back. Thankfully, Huy stepped into the reception hall.

It was large and airy. Squares of brilliant white light falling from the clerestory windows high above lay at regular intervals across the black and yellow tiled floor, but between them the expanse was pleasantly dim. At the far end, past a wide staircase on Huy’s left and a procession of closed doors on his right, the wall disappeared and a large portion of the rear garden could be seen. Drafts of warm air eddied through the pillared space.
This house is almost as sumptuous as the palace
, Huy thought, wending his way between isolated clusters of chairs and small tables that were lost in the vastness around them. The steward was mounting the stairs, the royal pair behind him. Huy followed.

The house’s second storey was as harmonious in its layout as the first. The hallway was broad. The aperture leading onto the roof beyond was wide and inviting. To Huy, irritated by the constant noise surrounding his apartment in the palace, the quiet here was glorious.

Turning in through open double doors, the steward halted. “Master, the King and his illustrious Mother are here,” he announced to someone Huy, still outside in the hall, could not see. “The Great Seer Amunhotep is with them.” He stood aside and Huy entered the bedchamber.

A large couch stood on a dais to one side, its draperies of fine linen dwarfing the frail old man enveloped in them. The odour of expensive frankincense lingered in the air, although the censer itself was scoured and lay on a narrow table beside an ornate golden shrine whose doors were closed. The window hangings were also closed. A bevy of servants had gone to the floor at the steward’s words, together with a couple who, judging by their dress and jewellery, were obviously not members of the household’s staff. Absently Amunhotep told them to rise, and he and Mutemwia approached the couch. At once a pair of stools were produced, but before he sat, the King reached for one of the thin, mottled hands lying on the sheet and stroked it before gently letting it go. “Please tell me that you feel stronger today,” he said. “I need you, Yey.”

The man smiled faintly. In spite of the inevitable destruction aging had caused, Huy could see the shadow of a former strength beneath the seamed and sagging face. Yey’s waving white hair was spread across the pillow. The pouched eyes regarding Amunhotep were a startling pale blue.
Warrior stock from Mitanni
, Huy reminded himself.
If it’s true that Yey’s father entered Egypt as a prisoner, what a driving ambition he must have had! In two generations the family has gone from captivity to great wealth and a powerful influence on our three ruling gods in succession. How did they gain such trust? I must ask the Queen for her assessment and form my own
.

“Majesty, I am dying,” Yey was saying hoarsely. “Much as I would like to remain in Egypt, I feel the breath of Anubis on my back. He is coming to usher me into the Judgment Hall, but I am not afraid. I have served my country with honesty and I shall be justified before Ma’at. What else can I say? I am old, used up, and Yuya is ready to put on the yoke I have carried for so long.” His voice had become more thready as he spoke and the last words were a whisper.

Mutemwia gestured to Huy. “This is the Seer Amunhotep son of Hapu.” She had risen and was bending to Yey’s ear. “I wish him to minister to you, but most of all I wish him to acquaint himself with your family.”

The response to her words was an amused smile that came and went across the sunken features. “You mean you wish his reassurance that our Maryannu blood will continue to support the Horus Throne, not try to usurp it,” Yey whispered as Huy stepped up onto the dais. “Have no fear, Mutemwia. We owe the throne more than we could ever repay and our service is given gladly.”

Mutemwia kissed his cheek, and Huy saw with surprise that her own painted cheeks were wet as she withdrew. At her silent invitation Huy took her place. Those blue eyes, still clear, met Huy’s shrewdly.

“I have heard much about you, Seer Amunhotep,” Yey murmured, his voice now little more than a sigh. “There is no need to See for me and you can do nothing to cure what ails me. Be a friend to my family.” His fingers shook as they brushed Huy’s own and Huy grasped them carefully, feeling the pathetic reality of the barely covered bones. “They only wish to be obedient to the laws of Ma’at and the godhead of the King.” He had begun to gasp for breath.

Huy hushed him. “So do I,” he said. “I’m honoured to meet you, Noble Yey. May your journey to the Beautiful West be safe and swift.”

The man had closed his eyes. Huy stood and at once a physician came bowing and waited for him to move. Huy left the dais. The King waved forward the pair Huy had noted before. Both of them performed a deep obeisance to Huy as they neared him.

“Huy, this is Yuya, Yey’s son and heir, and his wife Thuyu,” Amunhotep said. “They are dear to me and to my Mother. Well, let’s go home now. We’ve disturbed this house long enough.”

Huy answered their bows with one of his own. Politely he expressed his sympathy while privately he made a cursory assessment of them. Yuya was tall and muscular, his skin darker than was considered acceptable for an aristocrat. He too had very blue eyes. His hair, streaked through with slashes of white, was fair and lay below his shoulders in soft waves. His nose was an uncompromising hook over prominent, generous lips. The whole impression he gave Huy was one of physical prowess and a confident control over himself. Thuyu was also fair-haired and blue-eyed. Huy wondered fleetingly whether perhaps Yuya had sent to Mitanni for a wife. He made a mental note to ask the Queen if that had been so, and if it was, whether such a decision would have been seen as insulting to Egypt’s native aristocrats. The woman, though obviously in middle age, was undeniably still beautiful. They murmured a greeting, to which Huy responded.

“I can do little but offer incense and prayers for Yey’s passage,” Mutemwia told them as Amunhotep went out. “Send me word at once when he dies. I love him dearly, as you know.” She fell into step with Huy as they started back towards the entrance. Tears still glistened on her cheeks and Huy had to suppress an urge to wipe them away with his fingers. “I’ve known them all my life,” she went on. “Time and again they have proved their loyalty both on and off the battlefield. In spite of their foreign blood, the ministers trust them.”

“And you, Majesty?” Huy dared to ask. “It’s possible to love without trusting. Am I to be wary of the noble Yuya and his wife?” They had reached the foot of the stairs and were crossing the reception hall behind Amunhotep. He stopped and turned.

“The chariot horses all love Yey and Yuya,” he said. “They whinny and nudge at them when they come close, and obey every command eagerly. I think that animals, being innocent, are able to sense any hidden malice or deception in people.” He shrugged. “Be wary of everyone, Uncle Huy, but Mother and I rely a great deal on Yey’s family. See for them only if you feel you must. We do not want to insult them.”

He walked on. Mutemwia remained silent. Privately Huy decided that he must definitely find an opportunity to glimpse into their future. Their influence on both the King and his mother seemed absolute.

Outside, the light was momentarily dazzling. Huy saw with relief that the servant in charge of the monkey and the goose had gone.
Animals may sense evil in human beings
, he thought,
but birds will be faithful to the first face they see as they emerge from the egg
. The litters sat close by and the bearers were bowing.