Anton Gill - City of Dreams

She nodded regretfully but deliberately. ‘If you want a good one, and you want it today.’

Huy had wondered whether he should not go to Taheb for help – she had seemed more than friendly the previous evening – but he did not know her as he knew this obese brothel keeper. Taheb was too intelligent not to deduce what a request for a man’s wig meant.

Nubenehem’s professional incuriosity, on the other hand, was unimpeachable.

‘All right,’ he said, knowing that to bargain would be futile.

‘Come back at dusk,’ she said, then added, looking at him directly. ‘Make time to stay if you can. Kafy is free tonight. I know you like her – and I can’t stop her singing your praises.’

* * *

Preoccupied, Huy hurried back up the street to his house, his sandals raising dust. A gaunt cat darted across his path to squeeze itself into the handsbreadth of shadow at the base of a wall as he passed, where it settled, glaring at him with pale eyes, the pupils crocodile slits in the fierce light. He looked up from the animal to see Merymose and three Medjay officers waiting outside his door. Merymose was already looking at him. Somehow he managed not to allow his step to falter, and continued on, neither slackening nor quickening his pace, calculating the time he had to compose himself. It would not take him nearly long enough to cover the thirty paces that separated him from the policemen. People were about, and several cast curious stares at the waiting group; though Huy felt confident that no one had seen or heard Surere in the short time he had been in the house. But Huy had left him sleeping, and nothing would help either of them if the Medjays entered now.

Merymose greeted him neutrally. Huy noted that at least there was no aggression in either his face or his voice, and took brief comfort from that: the captain had not been tipped off. It seemed an eternity since they had parted company – but it had only been at dawn on this same day. The Medjay looked as tired as Huy felt.

‘I had not expected to meet you again so soon.’

‘Nor I.’ Merymose’s tone was severe, but perhaps that had more to do with the official nature of the visit than anything else. Huy wondered about the escort, and how soon it would be before he had to open his door to them.

‘You did not tell me about your past last night,’ continued Merymose.

‘I wasn’t aware that it was something that interested you,’ replied Huy.

‘It could have been embarrassing for me to be seen with a former official of the Great Criminal,’ continued Merymose. ‘Taheb should have warned me.’

‘I am sure she thought we would have things to talk about and that is why she placed us together,’ said Huy. ‘As for me, I have done nothing against the edict which prevents me from working as a scribe. If you have read my records, you will know now that I am kept under supervision for some of the time, and that after all I am a very small splinter in the buttock of the state. I doubt if it notices me at all.’

‘Let us hope that is all you are,’ said Merymose. ‘These men will search your house. It is a matter of routine. The homes of all old servants of the Great Criminal are being searched for any sign of the escaped quarryman-prisoner. My own feeling is that, even if you have helped him, you are far too intelligent to allow a trace of your action to become evident to us.’

‘Then why are you here?’

‘First let these men do their job.’ He indicated the door curtly, the bronze bracelet of office on his wrist glinting dully in the sunshine.

Suddenly aware of a tightening at the base of his sternum, and aware too of the beautiful value of the freedom he was about to lose, Huy opened the door and stood aside. The heat of the sun on his face no longer seemed real. He watched the three policemen file into the house as he might have watched actors. He wondered if he should make the usual offer of bread and beer; but this visit was too stiffly official, and in a moment it would be over. He found himself regretting not getting to know Taheb better, now that the opportunity was there; she might genuinely have helped him. He should have let Surere sink or swim by himself. He should have reported him immediately. Perhaps then he might have been reinstated as a scribe. Perhaps…

They stood opposite each other in the street. Huy looked at the familiar scene as if the gods had suddenly placed an invisible screen between it and himself. Half an hour earlier he had belonged here, had had his place, had been the object of no particular attention. He longed to be left alone with the simple problems of loneliness and unemployment again – the two pebbles that had seemed like boulders. The gaunt cat loped by. He looked at it and could not believe that it was the same animal he had seen minutes earlier. The truth was that he was not the same person. How could such an upheaval happen to him, and his surroundings not change?

Merymose showed no desire to enter the house, but lounged idly, ignoring the stares of the passers-by. He balanced on one foot and pivoted the heel of the other against the ground, his arms folded, his torso bent forward and angled to one side. The question came unbidden into Huy’s heart that this was strange behaviour from a man whose summons to work eight hours earlier had been so urgent that his superiors had sent horses for him; but he thrust that problem aside. What would it matter to him either way, in another minute? Perhaps after all this was the culmination of the work which that summons had set in motion.

Huy looked sharply at the house. How much time had passed since the policemen had gone in? Surely by now they would have found him. Before he could stop it, hope, that insidious and beguiling demon, had risen in his heart. It could not be. It could not. Even if he had gone, Surere would have left some trace: he would not have thought to cover his tracks.

Even as these thoughts clambered over one another in his heart, the first policeman emerged, quickly followed by his two colleagues. They were all young men, perhaps sixteen or seventeen years old, and this business of searching houses, exciting to begin with, had palled. Their faces were tired and dull.

‘Well?’ asked Merymose, going through the form.

‘Nothing, captain.’

Huy was aware that Merymose was looking at him, and forced his expression to stay blank, even relaxed. He knew he was not a good actor and was sure that the effort would show, but Merymose did not react.

He sent the officers on their way, but made no move to leave himself. Immediately Huy prepared himself for a more thorough, more experienced search of the house, one which would reveal – what? Surere had come with nothing, and would have left with nothing, unless he had taken food from the scant store, or located and raided the battered sycamore box containing the handful of copper, gold and silver which remained from Taheb’s fee, and which Huy kept in a hollow behind a loose brick in the wall which ran under the bedhead.

The Medjay appeared to reach a decision. ‘Come with me,’ he said, ‘I want to show you something.’

The girl was not more than fourteen. She lay on her back on a wooden trestle table which stood under a palm leaf awning in the shady corner of a broad courtyard in the Place of Healing. They had placed linen wadding soaked in water around her to keep her body cool, but despite the attentions of the attendants there was no stopping the persistent flies, and although it was still early enough in the season of shemu for the sun’s heat to be mild, her face was already puffy.

Huy could see no mark on the body to indicate how she had died. She was naked, except for golden anklets and bracelets set with emeralds. A rich girl, then; but he could see that already from the delicacy of her skin, and the fine soft hands which lay crossed over her small breasts.