He brought his own knife out and across in a slashing movement which was uncontrolled and foolish, and ought to have missed completely, but caught the side of Nebamun’s throat and opened the great reservoir of life there. Blood pumped out in a jet as Nebamun continued his attacking run for ten more paces, only then staggering forward and lying still, blood murmuring in his throat as he died.
Using his mouth and his good hand, Huy managed to retie the sling. His head rang with pain. He stumbled over to the offering table where the lamp still burned by the bread, and sat down on a corner of it, resting his arms on his knees.
Across the valley, he could see the lights of the workers’ tents. Nebamun’s blood was black on the grey sand. Above, the eternal, distant stars shone, the far gods, who measured changes in eons.
Huy listened to the silence, and became aware that it contained more than Nebamun’s death alone. He wanted to call Surere’s name, but his voice would not rise above a whisper, so he set off in the direction the sobbing had come from.
He was crouched under the cartouche of Nefertiti, his knees drawn up to his head, ready to return to Geb, a child of earth going back to his father in the position of the unborn. The bronze knife lay by him, hilt and blade dark with blood. Near it lay a dozen small scrolls of papyrus. One was the confession, which Huy took and burned at the lamp. The others were the originals of Reni’s accounts, proof of his embezzlement.
Surere was not yet dead. Huy came up to him and made him as comfortable as he could, putting his good arm round his shoulders. He looked up, his eyes wide as a little child’s. ‘There is no answer, is there?’ he said. ‘This is the only end of our confusion.’ He nestled his head on his knees again and died quietly.
Huy made his way down to the River. Wearily, he untied the ferry-boat and rowed back to the jetty on the east bank. Dawn was close but still he had the river to himself. He remembered that it was a holiday. Today the new king, Tutankhamun, would formally be shorn of his Lock of Youth. Soon, he would take power into his own hands and the uneasy regency of Ay and Horemheb would be at an end. He tied up the boat and made his way home. Later, he would go to Ipuky and make his last report. Ipuky could do with it as he wished. It worried him that the death of Isis was still a mystery, but the gods do not give tidy endings. He thought of her body, eaten by quicklime in the burial pit for the unclaimed dead, and said a prayer for her poor, abused Ka.
There was never going to be enough evidence to bring down Kenamun, her most likely killer; but it was possible that Ipuky would have enough information to close down the Glory of Set. Reni, he knew, would be broken by what had happened. It would be for Ipuky to decide what to do with the accounts. Huy wondered how Ipuky would take the news of his own son’s death.
For himself, if Ipuky kept his word, he would own the house he now lived in. An element of security would be back in his life. But Huy did not dare hope that the young pharaoh would pardon him – indeed, as a former servant of the Great Criminal he would do well not to gain too much notoriety.
He washed, aware for the first time of how much of Nebamun’s blood had splashed on to him, and went to lie down on his bed; but he could not rest. He watched the sky through his window as it turned paler, finally resolving itself into the hard, invariable blue of late spring, and he listened to the excited bustle, different in quality from usual, of the city waking up to a day of celebration. He thought of Taheb, and of what they would say to each other when she returned. He thought of Nebamun’s retreat from disappointment and disillusion into madness; of Surere’s hopeless ideals; and of the wretched uncertainty of life.
At last, as the first music struck up in the street, lulled by it, he slept.