‘I want to see the second one – Neferukhebit,’ said Huy briskly. He had had enough of carrying on at a snail’s pace. If toes had to be trodden on, too bad. Merymose might get it in the neck from Kenamun, but if this madman was to be nailed quickly, the odd official would have to sacrifice his dignity.
The embalmer sniffed primly. ‘That is impossible. As you can see.’
High walls of planking surrounded the body on the second table, forming a trough at the bottom of which the body lay. Into this natron salt had been poured, covering the corpse completely.
‘How long does this take?’ Huy insisted impatiently.
‘It depends on the weather, on the time of year, on the size of the body. In this case, not more than thirty days – forty at the most.’
‘And how long has it been so far?’
The embalmer consulted the writing on a limestone flake attached to the edge of the trough. He tutted, sucked his teeth.
‘How much difference would it make if you cleared this away for a few minutes – that’s all?’ persisted Huy. it is important that I see her.’
‘I’ve told you; it’s impossible. Nobody has ever suggested anything of the sort ever before. It is unheard of.’ The embalmer was shocked.
Huy forced himself to stay patient. ‘I imagine it is impossible for just anyone to come in here to see your work, as I have?’
‘Quite impossible.’
‘And you know that I am only here because I have royal authority?’
‘Yes.’
‘That authority is given me to help me find the killer of these girls.’
The embalmer looked uncomfortable, and wiped the back of his neck with a cloth. His assistants looked across with studiously blank faces as Huy began to raise his voice. The embalmer himself eyed him more nervously. This stocky little man, whose educated voice belied his riverman appearance, looked capable of doing damage. The embalmer glanced to check how close he was to a narrow shelf on which a series of knives were arranged in orderly rows.
‘It is not just me you will be obstructing when you object to my seeing her body.’
‘But to interrupt the process – ‘
‘For a few minutes?’
‘It has never been done before. I don’t know what the effect will be. I’d need the parents’ permission.’
Huy had had enough. ‘You have it,’ he lied firmly.
‘In writing?’
Huy growled, taking a step forward. ‘You doubt my word? I’m an officer of the court.’
Still doubtful, the embalmer beckoned his assistants away from their other tasks. He was probably thinking that in these times it was not worth taking the risk of offending anyone, just in case they were agents of Horemheb and you ended up in an emerald mine on the Eastern Coast. Together, the three of them removed the boards which formed the trough and the natron ran off in a tide of white powder on to the floor. Huy noticed the desiccated corpse of a shrew which must have fallen in when the stuff was first poured over Neferukhebit.
She emerged like a piece of sculpture from the white tide – the first woman, born of rock. Fussily, the embalmer dusted the remains of the salt from her body. The last of it to come away was damp, and a faint odour of sweet mustiness clung to it. Huy was surprised that it was not more unpleasant.
‘Quickly,’ said the embalmer.
Huy looked at her, reaching over to brush a last detail of natron away from her face.
Already the features were changing as moisture was drawn out of the flesh, but remembering how Iritnefert had looked when he had first seen her, he could understand how the two girls could be confused. They might have been twins. And, he reflected, the same innocence, the same near-perfect regularity of feature, was shared by Mertseger, who lay two paces away in the patience of death, awaiting her preparation for the Fields of Aarru.
‘I need to look at her back,’ he said after several minutes of carefully examining the girl’s body.
‘That is impossible.’
Huy dismissed the embalmer with a look and abruptly motioned to the two assistants. ‘Come on. She can’t be heavy.’
The assistants looked from Huy to their chief, who nodded assent. It was a more difficult job than they had imagined, because of the stiffness of the limbs, but by holding the head and the ankles they managed it. Huy looked carefully at the girl’s back, and found what he was seeking. If only Nubenehem remembered it, then at least he could establish for certain which girl had been at the City of Dreams. If whoever had killed her had also seen her there, and could be identified…Well, it would be progress, of a sort.
He nodded his thanks and the men laid her back on the table. The embalmer helped them replace the planks, and then fussed about whether to sweep up and re-use the original natron, or replace it with fresh salt. While he was deliberating, another thought suddenly struck Huy, and he leant over the edge of the trough, feeling the girl’s stomach and breasts.
‘What are you doing?’ the embalmer asked, outraged.
Huy felt under the small breasts and raised them. Under the left, just visible, was a minute puncture. Quickly, he moved across to Iritnefert’s body. The skin under the breasts had puckered and darkened, and it was impossible to see anything. He made his way back past Neferukhebit to where Mertseger lay. Under her left breast, whose pale skin was only just beginning to give up its bloom to death, was a tiny, dark-red blob, no bigger than a sand flea.
Armed with his new knowledge, Huy hastened back to the centre of the capital, but Merymose was not to be found. As it was possible that the Medjay had left word at his house, Huy went home. There was no message from the police captain, and he was on the point of leaving again for the City of Dreams when a rickshaw, its linen sunscreens pulled down around the passenger seat, rushed into the square and stopped by him, blocking his path.
Surere was already looking sleeker, Huy thought, as he tried to banish the servile feelings which still rose to the surface when he found himself in the company of his former superior. Surere, presumably, had sent for him because he needed his help; why was it, then, that he gave the impression of bestowing a favour?
‘It was a risk, sending a letter to my house,’ said Huy.
Surere spread his hands. ‘It would have been a greater one to have visited you in person. And the boy who served as my messenger is illiterate – a rare gift in a servant.’
Huy pursed his lips. He had never liked the nakedness with which Surere used people. Even less did he like the way in which people continued to be taken in by him. He remembered asking a fellow scribe about this, years ago, as they stood in one of the sun-filled courtyards of the Great Archive at Akhetaten.
‘I can’t stand his lordliness; but I admire his moral stance; and the first is always the servant of the second,’ the other scribe had explained serenely, fuelling Huy’s dislike. Still, Huy had answered Surere’s summons, had even given in to the messenger’s insistence that they travel in the closed rickshaw, so that he would not be able to tell where they were going. They had gone on for a long distance, before arriving at a door in a long, anonymous wall; the letter bearer, a gloomily serious young man with eyebrows which met across his brow, maintaining a severe silence throughout the journey. And now this room.
‘You haven’t said what you want.’
‘That would have been foolish, in such a letter.’ The bantering tone remained in Surere’s voice but he added edge to it for the last word or two. Huy felt himself warned. By this man who had no power over him and whom he could sink with one word to Merymose. But treachery was not in Huy’s blood. He looked around the miserable room in which they were standing: a low, dark, cramped place with a grudging little window through which thin light crept apologetically. It fell on a rough table and two stools. On the table were a jug of water and two wooden beakers, together with a small bowl of salt and a cob of dark bread. The walls were unpainted, mud-brown, and bare of any decoration or shelf. No table stood by the plain low bed in the corner, the only other piece of furniture in the room.