Using a large ox-cart loaded with clay storage jars as cover, Huy managed to keep out of sight crossing the open space which separated the palace from the town, but neither brother seemed aware of being followed. They took the main road which bisected the Southern Capital on its south-to-north axis, and turned right, into a street which led gently up a low hill. This was a residential district, and still quiet, but Huy knew that the streets here were arranged in a grid, which made it easy to keep one corner between him and his quarry. The disadvantage was that each street was alike. The only aspect the houses presented to the road was a blank wall, punctuated by doors at irregular intervals, which led to courtyards, though you could see an occasional small upper window.
Huy had been following Nebamun and Ankhu successfully for five minutes, memorising the number of left and right turns they had made since leaving the hill road, when he suddenly knew where he was. He slowed his pace as he approached the next corner, and turned it with caution.
There, as in a wall painting, stood the house. He was sure it was the house, though he had barely been aware of it at the time. Now he could see that the original whitewash had turned pale beige. The blank brown door was peeling. High in the wall there was a small, shuttered window. Otherwise the wall was unbroken to the tiled roof and for twenty paces in either direction.
Ankhu knocked on the door and almost immediately it was opened, closing behind him as soon as he had entered. Nebamun waited in the street. Huy watched from his corner, praying that no stray servant would come upon him and question him. The wall of the house opposite, as he had expected, was blank. The entrance was therefore not overlooked. There was no shop, no well, not even a shady square at one end of the street.
The mist had dispersed and the rising sun in the matet boat cast a shadowless white light. Aware of the noise his sandals made on the gravel, Huy walked away from the corner and found a small patch of shade. Covering his head, he squatted down to wait.
After no more than five minutes, Ankhu emerged and walked back the way he had come, Nebamun falling into step beside him without a word. He no longer carried the parcel wrapped in vine leaves. Huy watched them go. Ankhu’s eyes were dark, his jaw clenched in anger.
Huy settled back. Nothing moved and there was no sound. People who were going out would have left by now and no one would return before the sun had passed its high point. The light turned the dusty floor of the street white, and its movement robbed him of the grudging shade. An hour passed, and as if by a signal the crickets started in unison, their monotonous song making him drowsy as small shadows once again began to colonise the street. So quiet was it that a cobra uncoiled itself from some hidden recess and, black against the white, made its unhurried, liquid way down the centre of the street. Another hour went by, and Huy was beginning to wonder if he had been mistaken to stay, if perhaps no one would emerge before night, when the door opened, and a tall, well-dressed man, his head cloaked in a shawl against the sun, emerged and hurried down the street towards the centre of the town.
Huy had recognised Surere immediately, but dressed as he was he would arouse no attention in anyone else. He would soon mingle with the crowd. Huy was pleased that he had thought in the same way as Surere: now was the safest time of day to move around, when people’s minds were on their work and their own affairs, when there were plenty of people about, and when heat slowed the senses of all but those who needed to be alert to survive.
As soon as the slender figure had vanished at the end of the street, Huy walked swiftly up to the door and ran his good right hand around it. It was a well-made door, set flush to the wall, and its bolt was so cleverly concealed that Huy could not find it. However it had a wooden handle set in its centre. Huy managed to place one foot on it, and, by reaching up, grasped the upper edge of the lintel above the door, and hauled himself up. Balancing on his feet and the painfully extended fingers of his left hand, he reached up with his right to the shutters of the small window. Sweat poured down his face as he manipulated them, letting out his breath with a rush when he succeeded in opening them. They swung out under their own weight and banged against the wall. Huy held his breath. The noise had been a thunderclap. For long moments he clung there, unwilling to give up his hard-attained position if he could continue to take advantage of it, but afraid that someone would come running. No one did. Laboriously, he got his good hand over the sill, and by pushing himself to the utmost of his height with his feet, he managed to shove and haul himself up and through the window.
He fell on to the wooden floor of the room behind it with a crash, feeling a stab of pain as his injured left arm took his weight. But in a moment he was upright, and had closed the shutters. He recognised the room instantly. Cautiously he made his way across it to the door and listened; but he knew that if there had been servants, or even a dog, they would long since have been aroused. A part of his heart allowed itself to be momentarily amused at his foolhardiness. Then he opened the door.
He was standing on a narrow gallery overlooking a courtyard which was far smaller than the front of the house justified. It had a neat, but neglected air: a dusty palm tree bowed over a stone bench near a small pool which had been allowed to become half empty. There was no sign of life, or even of occupation. Next to the door of the room from which he had just emerged was another, and next to that an inward-facing window. Beyond it, steep steps – all but a ladder – led down to the courtyard.
Huy did not want to spend longer than he had to upstairs. Here, he was trapped, as there would be no question of escaping from the house again by the window he had entered at. Hastily he tried the door of the second room, and found that it yielded. Inside, there was an old bed, which did not appear to be in use, and the usual low table and chair. A brief search revealed nothing, apart from two crumbling rolls of papyrus on which the writing was too faded to be decipherable.
There were no further rooms on this floor: the wall forming the opposite side of the courtyard must have belonged to another house. Downstairs, there were two more rooms. One was an entrance hall. The other contained a bed, a long, low table, and three stools. On two of the stools small, identical wooden chests had been placed. On the table was the package Ankhu had brought. It had been opened. The contents, still neatly packed, glittered in the soft light: agates, amethysts, red and yellow jasper, beryls, carnelians, garnets, lapis lazuli and gold beads. Some were in the form of necklaces, others of earrings; most were loose stones. Taking care not to disturb them, his ears always straining to pick up any sound from the street outside, Huy turned his attention to the two boxes. One was new; the other, Huy now saw, was chafed, and bore traces of sand. It was made of good cedarwood, and its bottom was wet.
Both boxes were fitted with simple bolts, which, however, Huy drew cautiously. Surere would not have been above placing scorpions in the boxes if he had suspected for a moment that they might be tampered with. The new box contained more jewels and gold beads. It was almost full, and Huy could not lift it with one hand. There were no scorpions. The second box contained papers. They were accounts. Each of the five small rolls of papyrus bore tightly-crammed lists of figures, in red and black ink.
Huy scanned their contents swiftly and understood. He also understood why the rolls of paper were new, though their contents covered transactions several years old. They were copies. Surere would have the originals safe somewhere else. He must have secured them as insurance, before his downfall.
Outside, it did not take Huy long to find the recently-dug hole, concealed by a flagstone, in which Surere had hidden the box of papers. He could imagine the transaction by which he presented one little scroll to Ankhu in return for each new delivery of jewels, no doubt promising the return of the originals once he was safely away. In the meantime, Huy imagined, Surere had found a way of financing his mission.