Anton Gill - City of Dreams

‘How could I have performed the killings? In the palace compound?’

‘You have learnt stealth.’

‘You will not believe me.’

‘You know how many girls have died. Do you know their names?’

‘Yes.’

‘How? Because you watched them? Because you decided they should die?’

Surere looked like a trapped beast. He sucked in his breath. ‘I know them because the king told me.’

‘When?’

‘Tonight.’

‘Why I should believe you?’

Surere was still for an instant, then came to a decision. ‘You must see the king for yourself. You are a faithful servant. He will welcome you.’

Huy hesitated. Fear, sudden and undeniable, rose in his throat. ‘Where do you meet him?’

But Surere was cunning. ‘I will show you. And you will not leave me before we go. I do not want you to trap me.’

‘I swear I will not.’

‘He has told me to come to him again this next night. He says he will bring a confession. I must sign it and then die.’ Surere said this with simple regret. ‘Perhaps we can dissuade him. I have more important work to do for him. It is not yet my time to die. I will teach the Semites the doctrine of Aten.’

The day that followed was the longest of Huy’s life. He discussed the reign of Akhenaten endlessly with Surere, going over and over the last days, the final insanity, the wilful sacrifice of the northern empire. Surere reminisced sentimentally about his last lover, the freed slave Amenenopet, that joyful young man from beyond the Great Green somewhere, with his fair skin and blond, curly hair. How the sun had tormented him at first! Did Huy know what had happened to him? How long it had taken him to get used to his Black Land name! And his laughter – like bells ringing in a strange land. When talk faded, Surere produced a box of senet , and they played the game until the sun set, each man feeling the anticipation rise in his stomach with the lengthening of the shadows, and each aware of it in the other. Neither had eaten, and Surere had not mentioned food. There was only water to drink. Huy felt in need of bread and wine, but knew that lack of them sharpened his senses.

He managed to fit veiled questions into the conversation about the deaths of Merymose and the Twin Rivers girl. Surere showed no interest in either of them, nor did he seem to know anything about them.

The long hours, the stilted conversation, the tension of the approaching night, took their toll on Huy. By contrast, Surere was serene. He constantly spoke of the comfort he derived from Huy’s presence, and the pleasure he would take in presenting him to the king.

‘Keep in the background at the beginning,’ he said. ‘I will call you when the moment comes.’

Huy knew then that they would meet no king. He felt the knife resting against his thigh under his kilt. Tomorrow, he would tell Ipuky what he believed. Ipuky would tell Kenamun, and Kenamun would have his murderer. Then, perhaps, Huy would discover what had happened to Merymose, and the Twin Rivers girl, and how their deaths fitted into the puzzle that had thrown out two more strands now.

At last Surere stood up. Suddenly all the hours of waiting seemed too short a time. Fatigue had to be shouldered aside. Huy splashed his face with water and shook out his kilt. His stomach was hollow.

‘I am ready.’

Surere had hidden the two boxes, pushing them under the bed in an arbitrary and untidy way which was uncharacteristic but which indicated that his heart was already on other matters. Silently they passed through the door and into the street. There was no moon but the sky dazzled with stars, the old immortal ones, who were there before the gods themselves, and who had looked down on the Black Land even before men, the inventors of God, walked the earth. That had been the teaching of the Aten. Out of what curious animal did we stumble? Huy thought, following Surere’s lean back as he led the way down through the streets towards the quay.

Apart from a few watchmen posted on the laden boats, no one was about. Surere made his way north along the river-front until he came to a small wooden jetty ending in a ladder, at the foot of which a small ferry-boat was moored. They climbed aboard and Surere cast off, manoeuvring the little craft into the stream with ease.

Once on the west bank, they made fast to the side of one of the large workmen’s barges, and clambered over it on to the land. Above them and to the south, two or three small lights winked from the tents where some of the artisans at work on the tombs were spending the night. Huy and Surere made directly inland before turning north. By now Huy knew where they were going, and was not surprised. Nefertiti’s burial chamber lay only a few hundred paces ahead.

‘I have been coming here ever since I returned to the Southern Capital,’ said Surere. ‘Her tomb has been neglected. I have done what I can to clear the rubbish from it, but there is too much work for one man.’

‘When did the king appear to you first?’

‘It was during the third visit I made. I think that he had been coming here alone for a long time, perhaps since the moment of his own death. He loved her beyond measure.’

The cartouche containing Nefertiti’s name had been carefully cleaned, and the sand and brushweed partially cleared away from the entrance; but even in the faint light Huy could see that the paintwork was weathered and dull, and the place had a sad and neglected air. The entrance doors had been broken, no doubt by tomb robbers, who had grown bold in the period of anarchy which had existed here in the last years of Akhenaten’s reign.

When they had approached to within ten paces, Surere motioned to a large boulder which lay by the side of the all but obliterated pathway that led to the tomb. Near it was a low mound, roughly oval in shape. It was the kind of grave in which you might bury a pariah-dog.

‘I wanted to show you this,’ said Surere proudly.

Huy looked at the grave. Even in this light he could see that it was new.

‘God brought me back here to do one good deed, at least,’ continued Surere tranquilly. ‘He thought he was a good servant of the Aten, but he was not. He hated the queen. She could only bring forth daughters. He thought she was a monster, sent by demons to undermine the Aten. A very primitive man. I don’t know how I can ever have been close to him.’

‘Paheri?’

‘Yes. They never caught him. He had come back here, too. But he was hounded by demons himself. I would never have recognised him, I just took him for another harbour beggar, until he called me by name.’

‘What? I thought you were enemies.’

‘We were.’

‘Why didn’t he expose you?’

Surere smiled again. ‘He was past hatred, and he acknowledged the punishment of God. I was wrong to fear him.’

‘What happened?’

‘After the king’s fall, he escaped to the desert. He took refuge with desert dwellers, but he had already caught the disease by then. They threw him out as soon as they discovered that he was a leper, and he made his way here to beg. In the shadow of his father’s house.’ Surere paused. ‘He wanted one final favour from me. The disease had already eaten his hands and his face, and his feet were so rotten he could barely walk on them. He wanted me to send him to the Fields of Aarru. I brought him up here and killed him, and buried him so that he could sleep under the protection of the queen he had misjudged. I knew she would forgive him. Forgiveness is better than monuments.’ He broke off again, listening. ‘Now I must prepare myself, for the king is coming.’

Struggling to contain his full heart, Huy crouched by the boulder while the loyal servant approached the last resting place of his adored queen alone. Surere had brought an offering of white bread. He placed it reverently on a copper dish which lay on a small stone table in front of the entrance. He lit the oil lamp next to it, then knelt, head bowed, and waited. As he watched from his hiding place, Huy felt the hair on his neck rise.