‘What happened?’
‘After the king’s fall, he escaped to the desert. He took refuge with desert dwellers, but he had already caught the disease by then. They threw him out as soon as they discovered that he was a leper, and he made his way here to beg. In the shadow of his father’s house.’ Surere paused. ‘He wanted one final favour from me. The disease had already eaten his hands and his face, and his feet were so rotten he could barely walk on them. He wanted me to send him to the Fields of Aarru. I brought him up here and killed him, and buried him so that he could sleep under the protection of the queen he had misjudged. I knew she would forgive him. Forgiveness is better than monuments.’ He broke off again, listening. ‘Now I must prepare myself, for the king is coming.’
Struggling to contain his full heart, Huy crouched by the boulder while the loyal servant approached the last resting place of his adored queen alone. Surere had brought an offering of white bread. He placed it reverently on a copper dish which lay on a small stone table in front of the entrance. He lit the oil lamp next to it, then knelt, head bowed, and waited. As he watched from his hiding place, Huy felt the hair on his neck rise.
The king appeared. He came from nowhere that Huy could see, suddenly standing in front of Surere, part-hidden in the shadow of the tomb. He was dressed in a long robe, and his face was not clearly visible, but there was no mistaking the huge belly, or the broad hips and thighs. Huy’s throat was dry, and he prayed that Surere would not call him forward to meet the ghost.
The little scribe could not remember the sound of the king’s voice, having only heard it three or four times. When he spoke now, the tone was reedy and high; yet there was something familiar about it. Surere, who had been in the king’s presence frequently during his life, accepted it unquestioningly. Huy felt his own soul separate from his body and float above it. But part of his heart held back, and told him: if it is the king, he will know you are here, and you will have no power over what he does. If it is not the king…
‘Surere!’ said Akhenaten.
‘My lord.’ Surere kept his head bowed, his own voice a whisper.
‘I hold out a scroll and a knife. On the scroll is a confession. You will sign it with your Horus-name, with your nebti-name, with your Golden-Horus-name, with your nesu bat-name, and with your Son-of-Ra-name. Then you will take the knife and fall on it, entering the Boat of the Night to join me in the Fields of Aarru.’
‘But what must I confess?’ Surere looked up, trembling, his fear of death greater than his fear of Akhenaten. ‘Why must I do this?’
‘It is not for you to question my word. My word is the word of God. The scroll tells of the children you have sent to me to protect them from evil, and of the Medjay, Merymose, who would have thwarted me.’
Surere bowed his head again, raising his hands to receive the paper and the knife. The king stepped forward to give them to him. As he did so, his face came into the starlight and Huy could see that it was covered by a clay mask in a crude likeness of Akhenaten. Now his heart was sure; but he stayed where he was.
The king placed a scribe’s palette, with ink cake, brushes and water bowl, on the table next to the bread and the lamp. As if asleep, Surere unrolled the small scroll and signed his name. Then he took up the knife. Huy moved into the open.
‘Have you decided to stop killing?’ he asked the king loudly.
The masked head swung round. Surere, with a moan of terror, scuttled into the darkness, still clutching the knife. ‘Surere!’ Huy shouted after him. ‘This is not the king!’
The figure was pulling off its robe, and with it the padding which made up the false stomach and distended hips and thighs. A long dagger had appeared in its hand. Then a hand went up and removed the mask.
The dark eyes held a gloating triumph. The mouth was turned down. The face looked far older than it was.
‘No, I have not stopped killing. My work will never stop. But every day you have been getting closer to me, and it was time to pause, to shake you off. Surere has milked Reni enough now, and his usefulness is at an end. It is a pity he brought you here. I had hoped for a tidier conclusion. Think: the four girls, and Merymose. The riddle of their deaths solved by the confession of a madman. Your time would have come later. I already had your trust.’
Under the cold light of the stars, the sand was grey as pearls. Huy shifted his weight, watching the knife.
‘Did you really think you could persuade him to kill himself?’
‘He believed I was the old king. I followed him here once, after my father organised the hiding place for him in the old town house, and paid the first instalment of his blackmail. Surere disappointed me. I thought he was sincere; I thought he shared my ideas about innocence; but he was corrupt, like all the others. After my sisters’ deaths, my wretched brother started to pick up the scent.’
‘Why did you kill them?’
‘To save them.’ Nebamun ripped off the remains of his costume, and stood naked and taut in the sand, the knife solid in his hand. ‘I loved Iritnefert, but she wouldn’t have me. She wanted more. She wanted other men. I wasn’t good enough. I knew she preferred Ankhu, with his drinking and his hunting. So I made a tryst with her – a last appeal. I knew what I would do. It had to be by water, for purification, and then an embrace. I used an embalmer’s probe to kill them.’
Huy looked from the youth’s face to the hand holding the knife, judging his moment. From the darkness beyond them, he could hear Surere sobbing.
‘Then my sister Nefi. Did you know my father took her to the Glory of Set for Kenamun? Oh, she enjoyed it. Kenamun tied her up and tattooed a scorpion on her back. Her idea. The family goddess. My father helped him. Then she and another girl – a little bitch from the Twin Rivers…Well, you can use your imagination. The Twin Rivers girl disappeared. But not Nefi. She told me all about it. She thought I’d like to do it with her too. So I played along. It was too late to save her, but not to stop the pollution of her spirit. After that, I wondered about women…I knew Mertseger. She was a friend, she’d known my sisters from childhood. I’d seen her looking at me. I decided to find out if she was like the others; if she would be ready to fall. She was! But I saved her.’
‘And your sister Nephthys?’
‘Do you think marriage isn’t also a violation?’
Huy breathed quietly.
‘Then Merymose found out about the blackmail,’ continued Nebamun. ‘He followed Surere and discovered the house. I followed him. I wasn’t sure what he would do but I thought he’d contact you before he went to Kenamun. And you wouldn’t have been content with Surere. I knew it would only be a matter of time before you started to pick up other threads.’
‘So you wanted to help me in order to watch me?’
‘Of course. I am not a fool.’
‘And Merymose?’
‘That was easy. I trapped him in the stall and buried him in grain. I couldn’t have killed him otherwise – he was too strong for me, and I couldn’t rely on taking him completely by surprise.’
‘And me?’
Nebamun laughed. ‘You are a scribe; Merymose was a soldier. My brother trained me to use a knife. I do not think you will match me. Especially with one arm in a sling.’
‘What did you do to the Twin Rivers girl?’
‘Nothing. She disappeared. Perhaps Kenamun got too rough for her and she ran away.’
‘And your father?’ asked Huy, trying to keep the disgust out of his voice.
‘He only watched – everything,’ replied Nebamun contemptuously. ‘He enjoyed watching. He was always going to one brothel or another. Especially to places where his money would get him whatever he wanted. But he has his punishment now.’
Huy had guessed that the talking was planned to lull him. Now, without warning, Nebamun lunged. Huy stepped back fast, but not quickly enough to prevent the knife from slicing through the linen of his sling and opening a shallow wound the length of his injured forearm.