‘Whom did you report to?’
‘Don’t you know?’
‘Tell me again.’
Nehesy hesitated. ‘Horemheb.’
‘Why?’
Nehesy would not meet his eye. ‘You know how things are,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to get the blame for what happened.’
‘What did happen exactly?’
‘Haven’t you seen the account I gave?’
'I’m gathering information for the palace,’ said Huy. 'It’s an independent inquiry. Nothing to do with Horemheb.’
Nehesy’s eyes became more wary. 'Is it? I see… Well, I’d do anything in the world to help the queen, poor creature.’ As long as it does not cost you your neck, thought Huy, though he continued to smile. ‘Keep our meeting to yourself,’ he said, ‘and there won’t be any trouble.’
Nehesy nodded. The big man was as well aware as anyone that you did not leave it to the protector gods to watch your back.
‘We awoke just before dawn,’ he said. ‘The cook had stoked up the fire and the water was on to boil for the ful. Apart from him, I was the first one up. I noticed the king’s tent was closed; but then I saw that his chariot was gone. I felt Set’s talons round my heart then, I can tell you.’ He broke off, looking into Huy’s face. The dogs had made short work of the meat but as he lingered by their enclosure they stayed near, looking up at him with hopeful yellow eyes.
‘I ran to Sherybin’s tent and of course he had gone, too. Then the guard who’d been on duty last came up and told me that one of the trackers had arrived back in camp an hour before the others, with news of wild cattle. Sherybin had set off with him and the king soon after.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I was furious at first. The trackers should report to me, not to the charioteers. But I knew the king would have been off after any worthwhile prey. It’d been a bad hunt, and wild cattle at this time of year are almost unheard of.’ He paused, spread his hands. ‘I roused the camp. We kicked out the fire and got the chariots ready. I only left two men to guard the tents. The rest of us set off after the king.’
‘Was it light?’
‘The sun was just coming up. We went as fast as we could, but we didn’t call out to them. If they’d really found cattle we didn’t want to spoil the hunt. Then we saw the chariot ahead of us.’ Nehesy broke off, shuddering at the memory. ‘I thought, that’s my job buggered. But I feared for the king, too,’ he added quickly, catching Huy’s expression.
‘I don’t know how it could have happened, anyway,’ he continued, it was in open desert, and Sherybin’s one of the best drivers I’ve ever known. Maybe a rein snapped, or some other piece of tack broke. Must have done, because we found the horses not far away. They were panicky, but there wasn’t a mark on them. Worst of all was the chariot. It was a new one, heavier to make it more stable, but something must have happened to turn it over. Poor Sherybin… if you could have seen him. Did you hear what happened?’
‘Yes.’
The king was lying a short way off, face down. His arms we're spread out as if he was embracing Geb.’
‘How had he died?’
‘The back of the skull was smashed in.’
Huy was silent for a moment, trying to visualise the scene. But the only pictures his heart brought to him were of the wind swirling the sand into lonely, wild spirals in an empty grey void.
‘Not even the trackers could find any trace of the cattle they were supposed to be after,’ said Nehesy.
‘What about the one who’d found them in the first place? Had he come back?’
‘No one’s seen him since.’
‘How long had he been with you?’
‘I don’t know. Half a year, perhaps. But you know these country people. He probably saw the accident, got frightened, and ran off into the desert. You can live out there indefinitely if you know how. My guess is that he joined a ship bound for Punt. It’s happened before, when people get scared enough.’
‘And Sherybin?’
Nehesy thought. ‘At least a year. He was young, but he was a good charioteer. That is why I let him drive the king.’
‘They got on well?’
‘They were like brothers.’
The dogs had lost interest in their master now, and had gone to lie down around the edges of their pen. Two rested their heads on their paws. The others still kept a watchful eye, between yawns.
‘Where is the chariot now?’ asked Huy.
Nehesy looked at him in surprise. ‘Horemheb kept it.’
Huy looked at him. ‘But not the horses?’
‘No; they are back in the stables here.’
‘How did he react to your story?’
‘He was satisfied.’ Nehesy said this challengingly, as if Huy should take warning from it.
‘May I see the horses?’
Nehesy spread his hands. ‘Of course.’
They walked out of the animal house and into the bright sunlight. The steeds were quiet now, standing in the scant shade afforded by the palm trees planted for the purpose in their corral. Nehesy undid the gate and led Huy towards them. At the smell of an approaching stranger, they stamped uneasily, and one flattened its ears; but Nehesy’s presence reassured them.
‘Which did he drive?’ asked Huy.
‘These two,’ replied the huntsman, stroking the necks of a pair of sturdy animals which stood side by side. Huy, a townsman by nature and inclination, had not had much to do with horses, but the expensive and exotic beasts fascinated him. He approached them shyly, delighted by their gentleness, and the friendliness with which they responded to the touch of his hand. He looked carefully over their flanks and their trembling thighs, where on one a muscle twitched. Their tails flicked restlessly at angrily buzzing flies. There was not a mark on either horse.
Huy straightened. ‘I don’t know anything about these animals,’ he said. ‘But if the harness had snapped – if the chariot had overturned while they were still in the traces, mightn’t there have been some breaking of the skin, or at least a burn mark?’
Nehesy looked at him.
Much later Huy sat in the sun, tired, letting its heat warm him like a lizard. Immobile as one, he let his heart sort out the events of the day.
It had not all been as successful as his meeting with Nehesy. The huntsman, believing him to be performing some kind of official duty, had indicated where he could find the chariot, but not mentioned that it was impounded. From the guards . Huy learnt that this was so because there would be a judicial inquiry into the death, and on asking what the origin of the inquiry was, was not surprised to hear that it stemmed from Horemheb’s office. In itself that was not unusual, Huy told himself; but he was more determined than ever to look at the chariot.
As he had suspected, he could find no way to see either body. Both by now were in the initial stages of embalming, and he knew that they would be covered in the white natron salt which dried them, taking out the oil and water which in life fuel a man, but which in death rot him. The Medjay guard which was placed around the stable within the royal complex at the palace where the chariot was kept, and also the embalmers1 shed, seemed heavier than Huy thought necessary, but under Horemheb the Black Land had become a place where the leaders’ strength made itself felt. In the scant years of the reign of Tutankhamun, the old power of the king, which was absolute, but remote and benign, like the sun, had been replaced by something unsure of itself, less godlike; a power that needed to stress its presence by shows of force, by creating an unvoiced threat to any who would question it. If Akhenaten had broken the shackles by which the gods held the people in thrall, Huy thought, he had also sacrificed their innocence. By encouraging man to think for himself, he had obliged leaders to forge more terrible chains from now on, to control their subjects. A pessimist might think that only Ay’s presence had reined in Horemheb’s great ambitions; but perhaps Ay’s own ambition had grown beyond its natural bounds as he, born a commoner, saw the Golden Chair as a closer possibility.