‘I am surprised that Horemheb isn’t having his obelisk sheathed in gold – or at the very least, bronze,’ said the broker’s wife.
‘Why?’ asked Huy, though he guessed what was coming. Usually, only obelisks consecrated to the pharaoh or the gods were covered with precious metal. Dazzling in the sun, they were potent symbols of supreme power.
The woman looked at him archly. ‘Well, it shows modesty.’
Her husband bit his lip.
‘One of the prisoners from the barge escaped in the confusion,’ said Merymose. Huy glanced at him, and wondered if he did not see a humorous gleam in his eye. His lean body looked young, but the face belied it; Merymose must have been close to Huy’s age, and perhaps older. Huy wondered what his history was.
‘Have you caught him?’
‘No. It’s a problem, too, because he was a political detainee. From the court of the Criminal.’ He spoke harshly, and it was clear to Huy that he thought Akhenaten had indeed been a criminal, a betrayer of his country. Huy wondered who the escaped prisoner might be. It was likely that he would know him.
‘They’re holding the mason responsible in the Southern Prison,’ continued Merymose. ‘It turns out that he and the prisoner were lovers.’
‘What will happen to him?’ asked the broker’s wife, who had managed to take a pitcher of wine from a serving girl and keep it by her on the table.
The policeman spread his hands. ‘If in five days the prisoner is not recaptured, they will cut the throat of the mason.’
‘And if they do catch him?’
‘Then the prisoner will be impaled, and the mason will lose his nose and his right hand.’ Merymose kept his voice neutral, but Huy thought he could detect distaste in it. He looked at him curiously, noticing for the first time bitter lines at the corners of his mouth.
The woman drained her beaker and refilled it. ‘Poor people,’ she said, turning down her mouth. ‘One loses his life for following the wrong leader; the other stands to lose his livelihood and become a beggar at the very least. What a land ours has become.’
‘Shut up,’ hissed the broker. Merymose looked down, taking a bronze knife to his food. He had certainly heard. The broker’s wife, oblivious, ran her foot along Huy’s calf under the table and looked at him from under heavy lashes.
‘What muscles you have,’ she said. ‘What do you do?’
The musicians had started to play, the two lutenists and the oboist exploring an undemanding melody against which the fourth player tapped out a gentle rhythm on her tambourine. The singer, for the moment, sat silently. Her turn would come later, as the party became rowdier. Already several of the guests were drunk; one woman across the room had called for the copper bowl and was vomiting into it, assisted by two girls, their faces masks.
Huy saw Taheb before she saw him. She had appeared at the other side of the room, and was now moving from table to table, talking briefly to all her guests, as servants cleared plates, brought further courses, and replaced the melting scent cones on the heads of the women guests. She was dressed in a richly-patterned blue pleated robe which swept in one line from waist to floor. Her eyes, made up with malachite and galena, looked both larger and darker than he remembered. She wore a large collar which reached from her throat to her breasts, made up of alternating rows of lapis and carnelian beads, counterbalanced by a silver mankhet pendant which hung down her brown back below the rich darkness of her hair. She no longer wore a wig, Huy noticed; and since he had last seen her, her figure had lost its angular thinness. She moved gracefully across the room towards them, including him in a smile which was truly warm, not just social. Could rediscovered happiness make so much difference, so soon, Huy wondered.
She took fresh garlands from a body servant and came over with them, placing one each around the necks of the broker and his wife, Merymose, and, lastly, Huy.
‘I am glad you decided to come,’ she said, in a way that told him that she had expected him not to. ‘I have often thought of you since we last met.’
‘I am glad to see you so well recovered.’
‘It has not been so easy. Aset contested the will.’
‘What did Amotju write?’
‘He left me nothing. Nor the children. It was as if we didn’t exist. Half to his sister, and half to his mistress. As she died with him, Aset wanted to take it all.’
‘Perhaps she was badly advised.’
Taheb looked at him shrewdly. ‘Don’t take her part. I know what she was to you, and how she has treated you.’
Huy spread his hands, found himself smiling. ‘We all have to look after ourselves.’
‘That is true,’ said Taheb, not taking her eyes from his. ‘Still. Aset is a selfish bitch.’
Huy was saved from replying – if a reply was expected – because the broker’s wife had turned grey. She seized the wrist of a passing serving girl. ‘Bring me the copper bowl,’ she commanded unsteadily.
Course followed course with such disregard for economy that no fish, duck or pork was seen, and the wines of Khargs and Dakhla chased down quantities of beef, goose, muttor and egret. Huy, used to poor man’s meat, ate and drank little, and noticed that Merymose and Taheb did the same As the evening progressed, however, the grain broker became more and more effusive; his wife grew increasingly pale and silent. The acrobats, persuaded to stay, entered and performance after the tables had been cleared, though by that time few paid attention to them.
Huy watched the stars in the broad sky beyond the red-and gold columns of the hall as they grew pale, and as finally with infinite slowness at first, the sky lost its blackness and progressed through every shade of grey to lilac-yellow. He shuddered in the dawn. Taheb had left them to make one more round of the tables; the broker and his wife were asleep.
‘Do you want to walk back down with me?’ Merymose asked him.
‘Certainly.’ Huy had no intention of courting a Medjay’s friendship, but he knew the value of allies. The captain’s expression remained enigmatic – doubtless from professional habit. Nevertheless Huy decided to tell him who he was, hoping that here was a man whom, perhaps, he could trust. It would be a risk because the man was bitter about Akhenaten; but what progress was there without risk?
They were about to rise when Taheb’s steward came towards them, a worried expression on his face, leading an equally worried-looking young man, a Medjay constable whose relief when he saw Merymose was apparent.
‘What is it?’ asked the captain.
‘You are needed. I have been sent to collect you. I have horses outside.’
Merymose raised his eyebrows. ‘Horses? What has happened?’
‘Sir, I cannot make my report in front of all these people.’ Half of the guests were drunk, the other half asleep; but the young constable looked at Huy.
The captain turned to him apologetically. ‘Let Taheb know that I have left. I am sorry about our walk.’
‘Yes.’
‘Perhaps there will be another time. I would like to know more about you.’
A warning bell rang in Huy’s heart, but he said, ‘Taheb knows where to find me.’
Merymose turned abruptly and left, attended by the steward and the policeman. At the table, the broker snored gently. His wife stirred in her sleep and turned to face her husband. Sleep had smoothed the stress from her face and she looked much younger – the pursed lips had softened, and the wrinkles on her forehead and by her eyes had relaxed. There was something childlike and vulnerable about her expression, though the sadness remained, speaking to Huy in the cold dawn.
He wondered what business had taken the Medjay away so urgently. To have sent horses indicated something of importance. The animals were rare, and normally reserved for the use of the royal family, the aristocracy, and the small cavalry units of the army.
‘What are you thinking?’ Taheb was standing next to him.
‘The captain has been called away. I was wondering why.’