Afterwards, they were washed by Taheb’s body servants, and dressed in visiting robes. By dint of some speedy alterations by Taheb’s dressmaker, Huy was able to wear a kilt and shirt that had belonged to Taheb’s late husband, his friend Amotju. He ran his hand over the clothes. It was a strange sensation to have them on – more intimate than sleeping with his widow.
They rode into town in her finest litter, crowded with cushions covered in a rich fabric from a country undreamed of, far to the north at the edge of the world, on the other side of the Great Green, and covered with a canopy of light linen cross-threaded with blue and gold. The messenger sent ahead had ensured that there would be no difficulty in entering the palace compound, and the guards at the gate did no more than salute as the litter passed within the walls.
‘They are prepared for more than just a social call,’ Taheb said. ‘It will be interesting to see what excuses they offer for not having seen you before.’
‘I didn’t get beyond the major domos,’ said Huy.
Mertseger’s father, the general in command of cavalry, was a stocky man like Huy. He was sixty, and the muscle on his chest and arms had gone to flab. The gold bracelets he wore were too small, and bit into his forearms. He was lavish in his grief, his eyes still red-rimmed from tears and sleeplessness, and although he was polite to Huy, he barely seemed aware of who the scribe was. He spoke of nothing so much as his guilt at having depended only upon his own staff for security. Old Mahu, the gatekeeper who had slept on the night of Mertseger’s disappearance, had been dismissed without a pension, but that action had done nothing to mollify the general’s conscience. ‘Had she been seeing anybody?’ Huy persisted.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean a man – or any companion.’
‘She had her friends, but they met during the day. They often went to the park to sit by that lake.’
‘Might someone she knew have made a date with her at night?’
The general looked at him uncomprehendingly. ‘Why would she go there?’
‘She was found there.’
‘That is what I cannot understand,’ the general had turned in upon himself again, hardly aware of the presence of his guests any more. ‘Perhaps it is a judgment on me.’
Huy exchanged a glance with Taheb. ‘Why?’
The large, wet eyes were full of suspicion and dislike. ‘Who are you, again?’
‘I am trying to find out what happened. I am working for Kenamun’
The look turned to triumph. ‘And do you have children?’
‘Yes, but not here.’
‘Distance will not save them, if you are as I am.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We both served the Great Criminal.’ His eyes suddenly narrowed, and he came close. ‘I remember you, Huy, after all. I was in charge of a chariot division in the north. An important one. We sat in Tanis and heard the news from the coast, but we never had any orders. We were awaiting orders to move against the rebels from you, you scribes and administrators,’ he spat out the words, ‘in the capital. But no word came. Now we are paying the price. Five years ago my son was drowned. Now I have lost my daughter; you will lose your children, too.’
Huy felt the heat of fear. But these deaths were not caused by an avenging spirit from beneath the sunset. They could not be. He made himself remember the teaching, bringing coolness into his heart: all things have a natural cause which can be discovered. What seems supernatural is simply what is beyond present understanding. The last thing Akhenaten ever taught was vengeance: the idea was so foreign to his nature that he would never have entertained the thought. But, the general was possessed by it. The acceptance of the idea provided him with a curious salve for his guilt. Pity for his children was engulfed in pity for himself. As for his wife, the healers had given her drugs; there was no talking to her. She lay on a bed on the verandah by her daughter’s door, asleep but for her eyes, which were open.
* * *
Taheb’s litter carried them the short distance within the compound to the towering, dark house of the Controller of the Silver Mines. Ipuky had no illusions about supernatural intervention. A long, grey face and grey eyes reminded Huy of Kenamun, though the priest seemed ebullient by comparison with this sombre banker. The room in which he received them was sparsely furnished, despite his wealth. It looked like the chamber of an ascetic priest. However, the stiff chairs and table were made of the expensive blackwood which grew to the south and was imported from Punt. The one decoration was a finely-executed wall painting of the cobra-goddess, Wadjet, goddess of the town of Buto, in the Delta.
‘I hope you realise that it is only on account of the entreaty of Taheb that I see you, Huy,’ were his words of greeting. ‘You are persistent. That is not necessarily a quality.’
‘I want to find out who killed Iritnefert.’
Ipuky did not blink. ‘I have my own men to do that. I have told Merymose what I know. Why inflict further pain on my family and myself by telling you again?’
‘Because of what you might have remembered since.’
‘That is the talk of one casting around in the dark,’ said Ipuky with a smile like the light covering of frost which, on hard nights in the middle of peret, fringes the rushes on the banks of the river. He extended scant courtesy, even to Taheb, and despite his wealth his servants only brought in the minimum guest-offering of bread and beer.
‘You might have developed suspicions. Perhaps your men have uncovered something. I could help.’
‘We both know you are thinking about someone in particular, don’t we, Huy?’ There was mockery in the man’s voice. ‘I am thinking about no one.’
‘You are thinking about Surere,’ retorted Ipuky. ‘These killings started when he broke free; and he did not escape punishment for working under the Great Criminal, as we did.’
Huy would not share this burden of guilt. ‘Well?’ he insisted, as Ipuky fell silent.
The tall man fixed him with his cold eyes. ‘I do not see him as a killer. But when he is found it will be interesting to see what he has to say.’
‘Do you know where he is?’
Ipuky took his drink and sipped it. ‘No.’ There was a long silence. Ipuky looked at neither of them. He was waiting for them to leave.
‘Perhaps your wife has something to add; or your other children.’
Ipuky’s eyes seemed sightless. ‘My children are young. All are under seven years old. My Chief Wife saw nothing, knows nothing. Iritnefert was not her daughter. If you want to find out about her character, you must ask her mother, and she is in the Delta.’
Huy glanced at the wall painting. ‘She was in the City of the Horizon with you?’
‘Of course,’ a hint of impatience in the voice now. ‘And when the city fell and she decided that my fate was no longer one she chose to share, she returned to Buto. Do not draw any conclusions from the painting. I had it done to remind me of a mistake from which I have learnt much, and of an ending which I have no cause to regret.’
‘What was Iritnefert’s mother like?’ asked Huy.
Ipuky turned his gaze slowly to Taheb. ‘A fire that could burn in water, would you not say?’
Taheb lowered her eyes.
‘And only Paheri could control it,’ Huy spoke into the silence.
Ipuky was caught too off guard to conceal his reaction. He glared at Taheb.
‘Did you tell him?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Huy. ‘I was in the City of the Horizon. Taheb was not. What happened to your sons?’
‘Clearly you know.’
‘I know that Paheri stayed with your first wife, and that your second son was lost when the northern empire collapsed.’
Ipuky looked grim. ‘That is true, and that is all there is to say. They are both dead now.’