‘It is a pity.’
‘It is intriguing.’
‘At least you were able to talk to him.’
‘Is that why you invited me?’
Taheb smiled. ‘You’d better take care, or your work will have you questioning everything. We don’t always act with ulterior motives, you know.’
‘I am sorry.’
She laid a hand on his arm. It felt warm, and her touch was positive.
‘But I suppose you are right to wonder why I asked you here, after so long.’ She paused, weighing her words. ‘It is true that I wanted you to meet Merymose. He is an old friend, and a good one. I thought that for you to know one trustworthy man among the Medjays would be helpful.’
Huy looked at her.
‘I have done nothing to help you,’ Taheb continued, with less than her usual confidence. ‘I was not sure how welcome my help would be. Then, after Amotju’s death there was so much to arrange.’
Huy remembered that one of the first things she had done was to settle the fee which he had agreed with her husband. He had wanted to refuse it, but necessity had overridden honour.
‘There will be another chance to meet Merymose and talk properly. Does he know who I am?’
‘I have not told him, but if he is curious he has only to consult the records.’
‘There is no reason for him to suspect that I would be in them.’
‘He is a good policeman. He does not like the political role Horemheb has cast the Medjays in. What did you tell him you do?’
‘That I was in business on my own account. He did not press me.’
‘And if he had?’
‘Then I think I would have told him the truth. You’re a good judge of character, Taheb.’
She squeezed his arm. ‘Don’t think that the only reason for asking you here was to meet Merymose. Come and see me again.’
The sun was touching the edge of the rooftops as Huy descended to the crowded district where he lived, and although in this dead season fewer people were about than usual, the narrow streets were already beginning to come alive. Walking briskly to clear his head, he decided to make a detour down to the harbour to see the obelisk. The stimulation of the evening before, the brief elevation to the life of the rich, being among people again, had now been replaced by anticlimax. There was no one waiting for him, and no one to care whether he worked or not. That there was no work to do lowered him further. He remembered the last days in the old city, when he had loafed around the decaying port aimlessly killing time. It seemed to him that he had got nowhere since then, but Taheb’s invitation, and the meeting with Merymose, had excited his heart: there must have been a reason for this to have happened now: or was Horus simply trying to organise his life for him?
After a week, the obelisk was no longer an object of curiosity. The grain-broker had been right about the log rollers, on which it now rested, but Huy was the only onlooker as a dwarfed group of workmen under an overseer looped a complicated rope harness around the vast hulk. They worked hard and fast, and their task was soon completed. A drover brought up a team often oxen, which was attached by yokes to the towing hawsers, and within half an hour, amid cries and the cracking of whips, the great granite shape started to move forward, shunting over the groaning logs with infinite slowness. A fresh team of men gathered the logs from the rear as they became redundant and hurried to place them under the nose of the obelisk as the oxen, their patient heads held low with effort, steadily plodded across the baked earth of the harbour square.
Huy had been joined by a small group of children, pausing on their way to school, who were dividing their curious stares between the oxen and himself – this unusual man who did not appear to have anything to do. Feeling self-conscious, Huy set off across the square in the same direction as the haulage team, soon overtaking it and disappearing into the labyrinth of little streets to the south, in the midst of which he lived. Already the day was growing hot, and the mixed smells of fish and spices, so familiar that he barely noticed them, rose to greet him.
His house, like those of his neighbours in the block, was two-storeyed and narrow-fronted, with an open roof terrace. It had a yard at the back and – a bonus – faced not another row of similar houses, but a small square. At this time of day it was all but deserted as most of the people who lived in the district worked on the River or in the markets, which meant that they were up and gone before dawn. Those who did not had other work – in the brothels or the food houses – which meant that most of them would not rise before noon. Huy, who had succumbed to consolation since Aset left him, knew some of the girls by now.
He paused at the entrance of the square to look across at his house. It seemed forlorn and closed up, and he considered not going in, but turning right and following the narrow street another two hundred paces to where it opened into another square. There, a shabby acacia-wood door under a faded sign which read ‘City of Dreams’ led to a series of semi-basement rooms. In them, for a price, for a modest kite of silver, you could drink, eat, or make love, at any time. The madam, a forty-year-old Nubian of immense fatness called Nubenehem, had told Huy on his first visit that she was in the business of round-the-clock solace.
But that kind of solace was not much good to Huy anymore; he needed something more substantiaclass="underline" a replacement for Aset, not a substitute. He put the idea away and crossed the square to his home.
Reaching behind the cheap tamarisk door he located the stone bolt and found it already released.
On his guard, he pushed the door inward cautiously and descended the three steps which led directly to the whitewashed living room. A glance around told him that everything was in its place. A low table and three chairs formed the principal furniture, together with a built-in raised-brick dais spread with palm matting and a decorated linen sheet for use as a day bed during the afternoon sleep. The images of Bes and Horus looked down undisturbed from their niches.
Huy stood in the centre of the room, straining his ears to catch any sound from upstairs. None came from above the wooden ceiling, but that did not necessarily prove that there was no one there.
Looking quickly at the steps which led up to the two bedrooms, he moved stealthily past them towards the curtained doorway at the back of the room which led to the kitchen and bathroom beyond. In neither was there any sign of disturbance, though it was clear that both had been used. The limestone washing slab in the bathroom was wet, as was its low surrounding wall. The red pottery water vessels were empty, and a rough linen towel, though neatly folded, had clearly been used. In the kitchen, a crust of herb bread lay on a wooden platter next to an empty beaker which had contained red beer.
Huy was about to check the back yard of the house when a slight sound coming from the living room made him freeze. Someone was descending the stairs. He moved quickly along the short corridor which connected the kitchen with the living room and drew the curtain aside.
The man on the stairs stopped where he was and stared at Huy with a look that was half-furtive, half-beseeching. He was forty years old and tall, with a face that at first sight appeared strong, until one noticed the soft chin and the wide lips, the antelope eyes. Because he had never seen him without the long hair of authority, Huy did not recognise him at first. Now that he did, it was with mixed feelings.
‘Surere.’
‘Yes.’ The old administrator and the former scribe greeted each other with cautious friendliness unsure what roles they were to play now that the authority of the former had gone. It seemed that Surere was toying with the idea of once more asserting the rank he had enjoyed in the City of the Horizon, but if he was, he soon abandoned it. He was nothing more than an escaped prisoner, and he knew nothing of where Huy’s loyalty lay.
Surere put on a smile. ‘I am placing myself at your mercy. I hope my trust is not unfounded.’