‘You are very confident. Does it not strike you that you cannot leave this house without my permission? Why don’t I give orders now to have the information tortured out of you?’
‘Because I have no doubt that Horemheb knows where I am, and he will be intrigued. He is waiting for you to make your play. Keep me here, torture me, and you will alarm him into action before you are ready to defend yourself.’
Ay turned to look out over the river. It was beginning to fill with the red sand that heralded the flood.
‘I can weave you a net strong enough to catch the general, continued Huy. ‘But if you want it to be strong enough, you must wait.’
‘Of course you realise that you are speaking treason one regent to another? Why don’t I just turn you over to Kenamun now?’
‘I have thought of what I would say to you, Ay. I would not have said as much as I have if I did not know that I am not in your power.
The old man’s lip quivered and he turned away again. After a moment he had mastered himself, and now the glittering eyes turned in on themselves again, coldly weighing, as the heart within reached its decision.
‘Very well,’ he said at last, it seems that I must trust you -or give you what passes for trust. You are a very clever man; cleverer than I thought. But you are in a light boat, not on firm land; and there are rapids ahead.’
‘Then I must keep a tight grip on my paddle.’
Ay almost smiled. ‘Be sure that you do,’ he said.
Huy was not allowed to leave until night had fallen. Ineny wanted to escort him home, but it was an easy matter to persuade him not to. As for remaining alone in the palace compound, he still had his badge of office, and he intended to put it to use.
He waited until the shadows were at their deepest before setting out, hugging the walls, for the royal palace.
SEVEN
Queen Ankhsenpaamun was expecting him. She greeted him in a narrow stone hall, hemmed in by massive painted columns, dwarfing mere humans. She wore a pleated dress of dark blue, with a golden headdress and collar. It was as if she had dressed with such severe formality to bolster her from the shock which, from her expression, she already knew she was going to receive.
She held her hands before her as she approached him, her eyes wide open and shining. He caught her thoughts before she spoke them and there was no need for her to question him. He felt that there was no need for him to tell her, either; but he did, bluntly, briefly. Not adorning the fact or concealing anything. He was past that now.
When he had told her she was still for long minutes, her face taking on an expression of utter desolation; more, thought Huy, than the half-expected news that he had brought would warrant. She looked as if the world had abandoned her.
‘There is other news, too,’ she said finally, in a voice like the desert.
‘What?’
‘Prince Zannanzash is dead. His whole party and my couriers were ambushed by desert pirates, and killed and robbed. He had only a light guard with him.’
It was Huy’s turn to be silent. Then he said, ‘How do you know?’
‘His father sent me the news. It is a great sadness.’
‘Will there be war?’
‘No. But the only reason is that King Shuppiluliumash is not ready. He suspects that the pirates were not there by chance. But he does not blame me.’
‘How could he?’
‘Indeed. My only thought was for peace, and protection for my child. An alliance with the Hittites would have been the salvation of the Black Land.’
After she had finished speaking she was silent for a while. They stood opposite each other in the bleak stone room, which was cold, and which contained a darkness which even the many oil lamps could not dispel. Her hands went to her stomach, covering it protectively. Her eyes, which had been distant, became hard, and her young face became older.
‘What happens now?’ she asked, finally.
‘You must leave,’ said Huy.
‘When?’ The voice was empty.
‘As soon as possible.’
‘But not before the entombment?’
‘That is at least two months away.’
‘I will not leave before the entombment.’
‘You must.’
‘They have killed the king. You do not understand. They have killed him.’ Her eyes were on fire. ‘I will not allow them to take his name away, to kill his Ka as well.’
‘They will not do that.’ Huy wanted to tell her that the one thing Tutankhamun was assured of was a proper funeral. That his death had been anything other than an accident would be something only ever known to two or three people, and the secret would die with them. But he could see from her eyes that there would be no point in producing rational arguments for her now. ‘The king is safe,’ he went on. ‘No one can touch his Ka. He has gone to join the gods. But you are still here. And you carry the succession within you.’
‘Are you telling me that I should flee from these people? I amthe queen! I will order their deaths!’
She had flared up now, and Huy was alarmed at the change in her thinking. As gently as he could, aware of the possibility of eavesdropers in the shadows, he tried to make her see the reality of her situation. That she was a prisoner, and that apart from her body servants no one would obey her. She was still too young to accept the facts he placed before her, but by the time he had finished speaking she had grown up a little more.
Her face remained sullen, as if she were reluctant to abandon her thoughts of revenge. Huy hoped that he could persuade her to set them aside for the time being at least. He knew that she would never be in a position to avenge her husband; but there was no reason why she should not remain under the illusion if it helped to ensure her safety. In a distant future it might be that her child could claim its due. After all, it had been two decades before Menkheperre Tuthmosis, greatest of pharaohs, had been able to sit unhindered on the Golden Chair.
The queen accepted his arguments at last, and fuelled with that falsest of elixirs, hope, she agreed to put the safety of her child above the value of her dignity. Huy left her alone in the hall, a tiny mortal surrounded by impossible and vacuous images of grandeur. His only prayer was that the gods would hold her in safety long enough for him to organise her escape; but he did not think that Horemheb or Ay would move against her so soon after the king’s death.
Hugging shadows, he made his way back to the harbour quarter and his own house, embracing its isolation and his familiar loneliness like friends as he entered. He drew a woollen rug around his shoulders, for lack of food and sleep had made him cold, and settled his heart by reading. Cocooned by the night, he let his senses drift. At last his eyelids drooped, but a confusion of images jarred him awake again. It was a long time before they let him go.
Huy awoke to find his lamp burnt out and the pale lilac shafts of dawn striking through the window. Stiff from having slept in a chair, he pulled himself to his feet, massaging his neck. His head felt heavy and his intellect was blurred, but after he had athed and shaved, perfumed himself and put on a clean linen kilt and new palm leaf sandals, he felt better restored than he had done in days.
Senseneb greeted him with surprise, and, he thought, pleasure, though from her face she had slept as little as he had since their last meeting. She looked vulnerable. Perhaps she had been thinking about where her future lay now. It was time that she did. She could not simply have remained her father’s daughter, living by his side, forever. The reflection did not make it any easier for Huy to tell her what he had to tell her; nevertheless, it must be done. There was nothing to be gained from keeping the truth from those you wished to enlist as your allies, though that consideration did not give him the courage to speak of her father’s murderer straight away.