‘Yes. You have made many changes.’
‘It is important, if you are to continue to live in the same house.’
‘Had you considered moving?’
She shrugged. ‘I am comfortable here, and there is the office. I bear no ill-will, so there are no ghosts to rise against me.’
Huy spread his hands. ‘You invited me, so I came. But I should have sent word.’
She smiled. ‘You have chosen a good time. The wind freshened, and the two diorite barges in harbour due to go south sailed early. So – you may command me.’ She opened her long arms and let them fall gently to her sides again with another smile, gesturing to a couch and taking a seat herself nearby. As she walked to it, Huy wished that he could see more than the slit in the dress revealed. How could this woman have become so attractive? She had been withered before; now she was in bloom.
‘Do you know why Merymose was called away from here so urgently?’ he asked, as a body servant brought honey cakes and wine.
Taheb’s face became sad. ‘Yes. Poor Iritnefert.’
‘I want to ask you about her.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Has Merymose brought you in on his investigation?’
‘No – but thank you for the contact.’
She shrugged. ‘Your work is interesting, and I think you are good at it. Merymose is an intelligent man. You might learn from each other.’
Huy wanted to ask more about the policeman, but decided that now was not the time. He did not know Taheb well enough to trust her yet.
‘Did you know the girl?’ He said.
‘We knew the family. Occasionally we would be contracted by Ipuky to bring a cargo of silver ingots north from the mines on the Eastern Sea, and then upriver from the Delta. There is an overland trade-route now, so we do less business with them.’
‘What sort of man is he?’
Taheb’s smile did not slip, but she was immediately guarded. ‘How much further is this going?’
‘No further than me. I cannot speak to Ipuky myself, though no doubt Merymose will.’ He hesitated, and then continued. ‘I am interested. That is all. Merymose asked me to look at the body.’
‘Poor girl. Was she mutilated?’
Huy looked at her curiously. ‘No. She was unblemished. Do you ask that for any reason?’
‘I associate murder with violence. I imagined she’d been knifed, violated. You have an inquisitive and suspicious mind.’
‘It is getting worse.’
‘So, why are you asking me these questions, and why should I answer them?’
‘I am asking them to satisfy myself, and because doing nothing bores me. It may be that my help will be called for. If not, I will do nothing with the information you give me. It will be as if this conversation had never taken place.’
‘You are diplomatic.’ She embraced him with her eyes, pleased, and as she poured them both more wine, rewarded him with a view of her leg. Fine golden hairs, which but for the sunlight on them would have been invisible, shone against the soft brown skin of her thigh. What had happened to the old Taheb?
‘Ipuky is a civil servant. I am too young to remember but I think he began his career as a supervisor in the turquoise mines of the Northern Desert, towards the end of the reign of Nebmare Amenophis. I know that he was one of the ones who resented the rise of the military. He kept petitioning Amenophis to restrict the granting of golden battle honours – not that the battles were anything more than skirmishes then.’
‘Do you know what happened to him during the reign of the Great Criminal?’ Huy was grimly amused at how easily he could deny his former master’s name.
‘You don’t have to obey Horemheb’s decrees here, and we are not overheard,’ said Taheb. She seemed irritated that he had not taken her into his confidence by using Akhenaten’s real name. ‘The answer to your question is that I don’t know. But he was certainly in office – probably still in the mines department – and managed to hang on afterwards. Did you never see him at the City of the Horizon? There were plenty of career administrators and businessmen along with the idealists, you know. And they were just as necessary to Akhenaten – possibly more so.’
‘And most of them were forgiven.’
‘That should not make you bitter. Of course they were. They were given the chance to recant, they did so, and they went on with their work. They are the ribs and backbone of the Black Land, and the army is its muscle. Without them the heart cannot function, however much it rules them.’
‘Can it rule what it cannot control?’
‘Yes, as long as it thinks it controls. Akhenaten tried to break that pattern and look what happened.’
‘Tell me more about Ipuky’s family.’
Taheb considered. ‘There were three children. Iritnefert was the only daughter, and she was the youngest. She was unmarried, and there was no one in prospect as far as I know. Her mother divorced Ipuky and went to live in the north of the country with one older son. Paheri. He was already grown, and became a priest of the Aten.’
Huy drew in his breath.
‘What is it?’ asked Taheb. ‘Did you know him?’
‘Yes. He was Surere’s right-hand man. But I did not know that he was Ipuky’s son.’
They were silent for a moment, both thinking of the escaped quarryman-prisoner.
‘I wonder what happened to Paheri, after Akhenaten’s fall,’ said Taheb.
‘He disappeared, like so many,’ said Huy. ‘There would not have been many to mourn him.’
‘Except his mother. He always thought that she had been wronged by Ipuky.’
‘She must have been the only woman Paheri ever liked. His nickname was Sword of Surere. They may even have been lovers, though they parted company towards the end.’
‘What happened?’
‘There was a bitter row. Paheri accused Surere of taking too soft a line; but I also heard that he’d found Surere in bed with a stable boy. Surere certainly began to enjoy the fruits of power towards the end, but Paheri was a deeply jealous man.’ Huy made a dismissive gesture. ‘That is all history, and Paheri must certainly be dead. Where in the north did Ipuky’s wife go? I don’t think she ever came to the City of the Horizon.’
‘She came from Buto originally. I think that is where she lives still. She never remarried.’
‘But Ipuky did.’
‘Of course. In his position, he had to. I do not know the name of his new Chief Wife, but I think that apart from her, he only maintains concubines. Most people think Ipuky is married to his work. He has the reputation of being a cold man, and appears to enjoy neither his power nor his wealth, though I find that difficult to believe since he works so hard to keep them.’
‘Are there children by his second marriage?’
‘I do not know them, nor how many there are.’
‘How old might they be?’
‘Certainly no older than eight. Still children.’
Huy paused, thinking. ‘And do you know anything of Ipuky’s other son – Paheri’s brother?’
This time Taheb was evasive. She tried not to show it, but she was not quick enough for Huy. ‘I don’t know. There was something wrong with him. I think the family managed to find him some kind of posting in a province in the north-west, towards the Land of the Twin Rivers. But no one has heard anything of him since the collapse of the northern empire.’
Huy knew better than to press her, and changed the subject. He already had enough to think about. ‘How are your own children?’
She looked at him archly. ‘Growing up. I am twenty-five. An old woman.’
‘Tell me that again in fifteen years. You will cause many sighs yet.’
‘You should have been a courtier.’
‘I did try.’
A scribe came into the courtyard timidly, his pen-box swinging from his left shoulder and a sheaf of documents in his hands, stained with red and black ink.
‘I am sorry,’ he said to Taheb, nodding carefully to Huy and bringing his arm across his chest in greeting. ‘These are the shipping lists you asked for. You said they were to be brought as soon as they were drawn up.’