Anton Gill - City of Dreams

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.’

‘How did you find me?’ asked Huy.

The tall man shrugged lightly. ‘There was talk in the labour camps that not everyone had been arrested. Minor officials had been let off…’ He let the words hang in the air, regretting having used them, then hurried on to safer ground. ‘And the sailors on the barge knew of a former scribe who had helped break a gang of river pirates. Of course I didn’t know who, and they didn’t know your name. May I come downstairs?’

‘Of course.’ Huy relaxed the threatening posture which he had taken up unawares. More confident now, on legs thin as a stick insect’s, Surere descended into the room.

‘It was truly by the grace of the Aten that the barge I came on docked here,’ Surere went on. ‘I knew that there could be no better place either to hide or to find help than in the Southern Capital.’

‘What will you do?’ Huy said.

He did not want him in his house. A difficult man to get on with, Surere had always been one of the most zealous of Akhenaten’s officials, and at the same time one of the most blindly devoted. This allegiance had been rewarded by the special favour of the Great Queen, Nefertiti, though his adherence to the teaching of the Aten had been genuine and profound, entirely lacking the political motivation of many of his colleagues. That he was homosexual played no role in Huy’s judgment of him, but Surere’s sense of his own rightness had made him many enemies, not least because he was always prepared to sacrifice anyone and anything to his plans, firmly believing that the correctness of his actions justified any means.

‘I have been hiding out for a week, looking for friends who share the old faith. It is hard to ask the right questions, without arousing suspicion, especially when every day you get more tired, dirty and dishevelled; and when your head is shaved and the Med jays are looking out for an escaped political .’

Huy let pass the fact that his own question had gone unanswered. ‘Then you are fortunate to have found me.’

Surere gave him a smile calculated to be disarming. ‘Some sailors at the harbour who work on the gold barges told me where you live. I do not think they were curious about me, but they seemed to hold you in high regard. I came here last night after dark. As you were not at home, I let myself in and bathed and ate. I knew you would not deny such hospitality to an old…friend.’

‘Still, you took a chance. With my life too. If the Medjays had found you here…’

Surere bridled, remembering the difference in their ranks, but even as a rebuke rose to his lips he mastered his anger. It had not escaped Huy, however, and the former scribe had noticed something else.

‘They brand prisoners. You haven’t been branded.’

‘They brand criminals. Not politicals .’

Huy looked at him, thinking about the stonemason the police would kill in five days’ time if Surere were not captured. ‘What are your plans?’ he asked again.

Surere spread his hands. This typical gesture of ordinary Egyptians was odd in one of Surere’s refinement. Perhaps, thought Huy, he has picked up vulgar habits in the prison camps. It was the only explanation, though not one that satisfied him.

‘I need clothes,’ the man was saying. ‘And a wig – a dark, straight one. And I need sandals, and a knife.’

Huy interrupted him. He did not like the imperious tone. That was one thing that had not changed. But still a doubt nagged at him.

‘Where will you go? What will you do?’ he asked.

Surere looked at him keenly, i will make my way to the north-east. There is a sliver of land between the northern shores of the Eastern Sea and the Great Green. I will cross there and continue into the old northern empire.’

Huy looked at him. ‘But that area is lost. It is all in the hands of desert raiders now, and the coast is controlled by the rebels, Aziru and Zimrada.’

‘They cannot cover the whole land. If necessary I will take my people deep into the Northern Desert and establish a colony there.’

‘Your people?’

Surere’s dark eyes blazed. ‘Yes! Do you imagine that we are the only ones left who hold true to the faith of Aten? Oh, I have noticed that you have images of the old gods in your house, but I cannot imagine that you have reverted to them. You have them here for protection.’

He was only partly right. Huy had never quite freed himself of the old beliefs; Bes the Lion-Dwarf, and Horus the Hawk-Headed, Son of Osiris, had always remained secretly in his heart. Perhaps if he was honest with himself their power over him was growing, as the influence of the Aten waned, and because, not long ago, the Horus amulet he wore round his neck had saved his life.

‘Where do you suppose you will find followers? Horemheb has declared the Aten dead.’

Surere sneered. ‘A general cannot command gods. Far to the south, where Horemheb cannot reach, the Temple of the Jewel maintains its worship. And to the north, too, there are outposts. Small centres where the true faith remains strong.’

‘How do you know?’

‘We prisoners get transported from labour camp to labour camp, from quarry to quarry, from oasis to oasis, from mine to mine. News travels with us. They can try to break our resistance; but they will never break our spirit. And there is something else I desire.’

‘What is that?’

Surere smiled. ‘Revenge.’

‘The Aten teaches mercy.’

‘The Aten teaches justice. Where there has been betrayal, there must be retribution. But you are right too. And do not worry. I will not act before I have received my instructions.’

Huy looked at the former district governor warily. His face had grown calmer, and his body was relaxed.

‘Instructions? From whom?’

Surere met his gaze. ‘From God.’

Huy decided to help Surere, though he was unsure of his way in the grey hinterland of religious zeal where the heart is stalked by the beasts of madness. He fed his former master, found fresh clothes for him and, since he wore his own hair himself, paid a visit to the City of Dreams, where he knew no questions would be asked, and persuaded Nubenehem to organise a man’s wig for him. The large Nubian showed only a perfunctory interest in the task, as he had hoped, but her price for fast service was high.

‘Good enough for a noble? Well, it can’t be for you. Anyway, it doesn’t look as if you are going bald.’

‘How much?’

Nubenehem considered. ‘A piece of gold,’ she said.

‘A whole piece?’