16

HE SLEPT FITFULLY THAT NIGHT, waking often to peer into the shrouded room until he could see the outline of the hyena, a blacker shape amongst the thick shadows. He spent the hour before dawn lying on his back, alert for any animal sound, drawing that fetid odour into his lungs and willing himself to remain calm. As soon as he could see the details of the scene painted on his ceiling, he forced himself to leave the couch and raise the window hanging. The pink of an early sunrise washed over and past him and he turned into the newly lit space, praying that it might be empty. The hyena’s head had followed his movements and Huy found himself staring straight into eyes so glossy that he believed he was able to see himself reflected in them. He stood still for some time, senses straining to detect any hint of malice coming from the beast, but its gaze remained politely neutral. Only when he dared to walk right up to it did it move, rising clumsily on all fours so that its ugly hindquarters appeared, and opening its black mouth to snarl at him. The snarl became a growl as he stubbornly bent to touch it. Black lips lifted away from black, moist teeth, and then it laughed at him, a series of highly pitched warning barks. Its hackles rose. Repulsed and wary, Huy stepped away.

Outside the door, Kenofer was snoring on his pallet and the guard at the end of the passage gave Huy a short nod. Obviously neither of them had heard any sound. Gently, Huy pressed Kenofer’s shoulder and the body servant was fully alert at once. “I must go to the palace,” Huy said. “If Amunmose hasn’t ordered hot water for the bathhouse yet, you’ll have to see to it yourself. Also, I want to wear a blue kilt and shirt today. Do I have these?”

Kenofer was on his feet and listening carefully. “Master, you want to wear mourning clothes?” he responded doubtfully. “Has there been a death in the palace?”

“No. I won’t be wearing any jewellery, and my usual sandals will be fine. Bring me my dose of poppy before you do anything else.” Kenofer had already wrapped yesterday’s kilt around himself and was slipping into his reed sandals. Huy returned to his couch, sitting on its edge and meeting the hyena’s stare. “I will not let you unnerve me,” he said. “Anubis refuses to tell me why you have begun to haunt me, or even who sent you. I cannot let you preoccupy my mind today. I must open my shrine. Move back.” He did not expect a reaction, but the hyena got up and shambled to the far corner, settling down where a shadow still hung. I can learn to ignore you, Huy went on silently as he opened Khenti-kheti’s shrine and bowed to the totem of his birth sepat. I can learn to stop asking questions about you. I can make you as anonymous and disregarded as the tiles under my feet. He knelt and prostrated himself before the god, reminding Khenti-kheti of the devotion he had shown in the design and ongoing construction of the new temple at Hut-herib and begging him for his help when he faced the King. He prayed to Amun also, speaking of the blasphemy he had seen in his vision. He tried to maintain a proper attitude of worship, but his thoughts kept slipping out of his control to circle the moment when he must open his mouth and probably destroy himself.

As he got up from the floor and stepped forward to close the doors of the shrine, Kenofer entered with the poppy. “One of the kitchen staff is tending the fire for the water,” he said as Huy drained the vial. “I’m sorry that you must wait, but it’s still very early.” He took the empty vial, set it on the table beside the couch, and began to empty one of Huy’s chests in search of the blue linen.

Huy glanced into the corner. Two black eyes glittered back at him. Deliberately, he turned his back on them.

Within the hour he was bathed, kohled, and dressed, and Kenofer had woven his hair into one long braid that hung along his spine and bumped lightly against the small of his back. The man had brought food—bread, goat’s cheese, and milk and water—and although Huy drank, his stomach revolted against anything solid. In one lunatic moment he tore off a piece of the flatbread intending to toss it at the hyena, but common sense reasserted itself and, half ashamed, he returned the portion to the tray.

Going downstairs to the reception hall, he was about to summon Perti and his soldiers as an escort when he decided against any show of force. There must be no suggestion of violence, no reason for the King to even imagine a threat. Sending for his scribe, he waited just inside the cedar doors that gave out onto his vast arouras. He felt numb inside and out thanks to the poppy. His thoughts had slowed and calmed so that by the time Paneb came gliding up to him, palette under his arm, and together they went out into the early sunlight, he had begun to plan what he would say. Paneb had glanced swiftly at his attire and then away, keeping the obvious question to himself as a good servant should, and Huy did not enlighten him. Paneb had recorded the Seeing in the baby Prince’s nursery and had made two copies of it, one for the King and the other for Huy’s archives. He knew its details as well as Huy did.

They were carried in separate litters through the dusty poppy fields, along the bank of the sunken river, and into the palace compound. Huy needed to be alone and undistracted. He missed the comfort of Perti’s presence and felt naked without a barrier of soldiers between himself and Weset’s citizens, but he knew that he had made the right decision in leaving them behind in spite of Perti’s vehement insistence to the contrary.

At the southern gate of the outer wall, his bearers were stopped. Huy pushed the litter’s curtain aside to see Commander-in-Chief Wesersatet coming towards him. At the sight of Huy’s face the man broke into a smile. He bowed. “Mer kat, your message from Mennofer took us all by surprise! You were not expected back so soon! I trust your business there was concluded successfully?”

Huy nodded, returning the smile. “It was. I’m happy to see you, Wesersatet, but I’m in a hurry to speak to the King. Is His Majesty still in his private quarters?” He asked without much hope of an answer. It was not necessary for a commander to be in the royal presence unless summoned. To Huy’s surprise, Wesersatet replied immediately.

“The King has already left his couch in favour of a chair, but when I left him he was in no hurry to be bathed. He seldom rises so early, but I had requested a private audience with him before I began my duties for the day. I’m retiring, Huy.”

“What? No, you can’t!” Huy protested. “You’ll thoroughly demoralize every division in the army! There’ll be soldiers weeping in the streets! Who will replace you?” He was joking, but it was true that the men of Egypt’s army loved him. Another link with my past is being severed, Huy thought sadly beneath the forced humour. Wesersatet deserves to leave the court on a tide of gifts and adulation, but I dread the time when every face in the palace is strange to me.

Wesersatet laughed. “You give me too much credit. I’ll miss the hours we spent together here in your office, devising the military strategies that have played their part in the creation of Egypt’s empire. We did well, didn’t we? I’ve recommended to His Majety that Navy Commander Nebenkempt take my place as Chief Commander, or rather, I recommended him to the Queen, who sits in audience every morning. I think you know him well, as your older nephew’s father-in-law.”

“A good choice. But I’ll miss you very much. Enjoy a long and peaceful retirement, Commander.”

He was about to signal the bearers to go through the now open gate, but Wesersatet put his mouth to Huy’s ear. “The King is suffering from a hangover and will want to spend the rest of the morning lying on his couch in order to recover from that and the annoyance of having to personally grant me permission to go home instead of being able to leave the matter to Tiye. I just thought I’d warn you.” Withdrawing, he bowed and strode away, and Huy and Paneb entered the palace precincts.

Leaving the litter-bearers under the shade of the many trees dotting the area between the outer wall and the sprawling buildings, they sought admittance through a side door, where Huy sent one of the palace heralds to ask if the King would see him. The man returned quickly. “His Majesty is very eager to receive you, mer kat. His Majesty is in his bedchamber. Shall I call a house servant to escort you?”

“Thank you, but I know the way. Is the Empress with him?”

“Not yet. She is hearing the petitions at present.”

I hope she’ll go from there to the administrative offices, Huy prayed as he and Paneb moved into the labyrinth of intersecting passages. That’s what we used to do. As he walked through the palace, the noise and laughter of the groups of courtiers already congregating at every intersection died away at his approach. Heads were bowed and arms outstretched in reverence. A few of them made sure that their fingers brushed him. As if by merely touching me they might be healed or given a glimpse of their future, Huy thought as he passed them. Thothmes’ comments regarding Huy’s titular godhead came to mind and were quickly dismissed. The wide, statue-lined corridor leading to Amunhotep’s imposing double doors was directly ahead, and the King’s personal bodyguard stood with Chief Steward Nubti, watching Huy and Paneb approach. Nubti rose with his usual misshapen grace. Reverencing Huy with a smile, he opened the door behind him, and Huy and Paneb waited, listening to his deep voice announce them. He waved them in.

At once they knelt and performed a full prostration. Huy, with his nose to the floor, could smell a faint trace of Tiye’s perfume, her odd blend of cardamom and myrrh. Has she spent the night here, he wondered, or was she here a short time ago? If so, she may not return and my luck will continue to hold. Amunhotep’s happy voice bade them stand and approach and they did so, bowing again as they came up to him. He was relaxing in the wide chair beside his couch, swathed to his ankles in crumpled linen, a white cap on his head and his face unpainted. He was beaming at Huy, and for a moment Huy was returned to his office at Hut-herib, where his precious royal charge sat behind his desk with the plans for constructing a ship under his hands, his brown face lifted to Huy’s with a question. Free of cosmetics he was simply an older version of that impatient child, all innocence and anticipation, and Huy’s heart filled with love for him as Amunhotep left his seat and threw his arms around Huy.

“Uncle, this is a great and welcome surprise!” he said as he released Huy and returned to his chair. “I was grumbling at Wesersatet for making me leave my couch so early, but now I’m overjoyed! Your presence has cured the pain in my head! Why didn’t you send me word that you had come home? Sit. Sit!”

“I needed to rest before approaching you,” Huy replied, “and if Your Majesty doesn’t mind, I’d rather stand for now.” He repressed an urge to reach down and stroke the King’s soft cheek. “It’s good to see you also, Amunhotep.”

Some of the cheerfulness went out of the younger man’s brown eyes. “You want to be serious. True to your word, you bring me the vision of my little Prince’s future now that matters in Mennofer have been concluded. I’m anxious to hear it, particularly since for once the gods did not predict an early death for him, but you come to me unadorned and wearing blue. Not all the events in the Seeing are good, are they? I think that the Empress must hear it too.” He beckoned Nubti. Huy noted that Amunhotep had not asked for the results of his visit to Ptah’s temple. Hastily he put out a hand.

“Please, Majesty, not yet,” he said. “What I have to say is for you alone at present.”

Amunhotep sobered. “I have no secrets from Tiye. You are my right hand, Uncle, and she is my left. I insist on her presence. Nubti, bring me wine.”

The chief steward came forward quickly. “But Your Majesty, you have eaten no food yet this morning. Wine on an empty stomach will simply give you another headache, and you had planned to hunt later today.”

Amunhotep flicked his fingers, a gesture of irritable dismissal. “You do not exist in order to mother me! Do as I order you. Stop trying to catch my uncle’s eye, and don’t frown. It makes you look like a cat about to vomit.” Nubti bowed and went out.

The time when Huy might have corrected the King’s rudeness was long gone. He waited in silence, Paneb behind him. The King began to drum his fingers on the gilded arm of his chair. A line of sweat had broken out across his forehead, darkening the band of his cap and sending a whiff of sour rosemary oil into the air. “If the Seeing had been full of promise, you would have told us all of it before you left Weset,” he ventured after a while. “You assured us that my second son will not die in his youth, therefore Anubis showed you some other form of anguish, something terrible.”

“Yes.”

“Then I shall drink before I allow you to speak, mer kat, and Tiye must definitely hear what Atum showed you.”

“But Amunhotep—”

“No buts, Uncle. The boy was spawned from her body. Already she adores him and spends every afternoon in his nursery. He is completely healthy and suckles well. Amulets of protection surround him—”

Huy cut in, leaning towards him. “Majesty, he needs no protection against any Khatyu. No god wishes to unleash a force of demons against him—not yet.”

“Not yet? What does that mean? Senu!” he shouted. “Are you outside my door?”

At once the Chief Palace Herald appeared and sketched a bow. “Majesty?”

“Find the Empress, somewhere in the administrative quarter. She’s to come here at once. Escort her.”

Senu kept his expression bland, but Huy saw astonishment flit swiftly across his features. Amunhotep doesn’t often issue orders to Tiye, Huy reflected, and I wager she will be annoyed at both the summons and the interruption. Senu bobbed a reverence and went away, closing the door behind him, but it was reopened by a young man Huy did not know, a silver tray bearing a large flagon, a golden cup, and a dish of sweetmeats held ceremoniously before him.

“I don’t need a tedious repetition of the vintage, Tiawi,” Amunhotep said irritably, “and you can take the almond cakes away. I’m not hungry. Just pour and leave.”

Unperturbed, the man did as he was bidden, his movements fraught with solemnity, then turned to bow to Huy. “I am Royal Cup Bearer of Wine Si-Renenut, mer kat, recently appointed to the service of His Majesty. His Majesty and the members of my family call me Tiawi. May I fetch a cup for you also?”

“It would do the Seer no good unless it was laced with lotus flowers, Tiawi,” the King interposed.

Tiawi bowed again. “Unfortunately, the shipment of grape wine that arrived yesterday has not yet been opened,” he explained. “Therefore I have not tasted it nor set aside the required amount for the inclusion of the lotus. However, there are plenty of juices stored beside the kitchens.”

Huy would have liked a cup of pomegranate juice. His mother and the family’s one servant, Hapzefa, used to make it after every harvest and the taste would have brought back to him the security and peace of his earliest years at Hut-herib. But Amunhotep waved Tiawi away. “Thank you, Tiawi,” he snapped. “You may go.”

Tiawi managed to include Huy in his bow. Then, tray in hand, he backed away, bowed once more, and went out.

“I have four wine and beer bearers now,” Amunhotep said. “Tiye complains that I’m getting fatter because of the amount I drink, but as long as I’m able to hunt and satisfy my women, why should I care? Egypt is in more capable hands than mine anyway. You and she took over the government years ago.” He raised the cup and took a mouthful of wine.

“Your mother and I raised you to govern, not Tiye,” Huy reminded him sharply. “As for me, I would like nothing better than to pass the reins of Egypt’s control back to you and spend my time with Thothmes and Nasha, or overseeing the progress of the tomb you have graciously allowed me to place between those of your mighty forebears the Osiris-ones Thothmes the First and the Second of that name, or choosing the final decorations for my totem’s new temple. Why are you suddenly so peevish, Majesty?”

Amunhotep smiled faintly over the rim of his cup. Huy could see that he was doing his best to regain his good humour. “I don’t know, Uncle,” he admitted ruefully. “I want to be bathed and dressed and then visit my stables. I ought to be more than eager to learn the details of the Seeing now that I’ve waited for months, but if something appalling waits to overtake the Prince years from now, why do I need to concern myself with it today?”

Huy was saved from answering. The doors were flung back and Tiye swept into the room followed by her body servant Heria, carrying her spare sandals, whisk, and cosmetic box, Chief Palace Herald Senu, Tiye’s steward, the King’s steward Nubti, and a couple of palace guards. The room was suddenly full of bowed heads.

“Senu, you should have told me that the Seer was here,” Tiye said as she passed Huy without acknowledging his obeisance and settled herself into the vacant chair next to her husband. “Nubti, bring me a footrest and another cup—I might as well refresh myself. Chief Treasurer Sobekhmose and I have been talking together ever since I left the audience chamber and my throat is dry.” Coolly her eyes met Huy’s. She was wearing a sheath of pale green that emphasized the red lights in her loose hair. Her jewellery, from the circlet on her brow to the anklets on her half-hidden feet, was made of gold unrelieved by any embellishment. Even the rings on each of her fingers were bereft of any stone, the patterns on them etched into the metal. Huy thought that she looked magnificent and powerful, the impression of self-assurance evident in her heavily lidded eyes and the cruel downward turn of her hennaed mouth. Still in her mid-twenties, she exuded the authority of complete competence.

We worked so well together, you and I, in the days when we argued ourselves and the various ministers into policies from which grew the empire Egypt now controls, he said to her mutely. I wish that we had remained friends.

Nubti was approaching with a small footrest, which he set on the floor in front of her, and another cup. Half filling it with wine, he bowed and retreated.

Tiye swung her feet onto the footrest, took a mouthful of wine, and set the cup down loudly on the table between herself and Amunhotep. “Well?” she said sharply to Huy. “The gods know I’ve waited quite long enough for this revelation. What did Anubis show to you in the matter of the Prince’s future?”

She glanced at Paneb as though uninterested in him, but a brief twist of what Huy could only interpret as jealousy marred her face. The lowly scribe Paneb already knows what you do not, Huy thought.

Amunhotep raised his voice. “Leave us, all of you. Wait in the passage. Nubti, Seer Huy will come for you when we have finished.” Obediently they all bowed themselves out. The double doors closed behind them and Amunhotep’s attention returned to Huy. He reached across the small table to grasp Tiye’s hand. “You look pale, Uncle,” he said kindly to Huy. “Perhaps you should sit after all.”

A sudden weakness was beginning to make Huy’s knees tremble. Dragging a stool from Amunhotep’s cosmetics table, he placed it before them and sank onto it gratefully.

“Now, Uncle, tell us everything. You wear blue in order to warn us, don’t you?” Huy saw him tighten his hold on Tiye, whose gaze was already fixed coldly on Huy’s face.

At Huy’s signal Paneb went to the floor and prepared to record the proceedings. He had not been ordered to leave with the other servants. I want an accurate account of everything said today, and so does Amunhotep, Huy decided. He’s not as obtuse as he would like his courtiers to think. Clearing his throat, trying not to clench his fists, Huy began.

He spoke of the strange city in which he had found himself, the malformed body of the King who stood with several women and girls above the crowd, the awarding of the Gold of Favours, the distressing answers to Huy’s questions given by Anubis in the guise of the anonymous man beside him. He spoke of temples left empty, priests turned out to wander begging from village to village, the gods’ storehouses cleared of gold and grain that went into the silos of the Aten and its worshippers at Akhet-Aten while the rest of Egypt starved. Paneb’s brush remained poised over the papyrus on his palette as Huy repeated the details of the vision already copied and filed away. As Huy went on, Amunhotep sat frozen, oblivious to the wine cup resting on his thigh or Tiye’s fingers curled tightly around his own. Tiye’s eyes stayed fixed on Huy. He was able to read nothing in them. At his first words a dull red had flushed her cheeks, fading almost at once to a patchy sallowness, and her features had gone blank, but he could see the gradual tensing of the rest of her body.

Today I am atoning for the loss of courage I displayed before the Osiris-one Amunhotep the Second, he thought as his bleak words filled the room. I am discharging my debt to you, Ma’at, and to you, mighty Atum. If the hyena is haunting me because of that perfidy, dismiss it, I beg you, and let me live out the remainder of my days in peace!

When there was nothing left to say, no detail overlooked, he closed his mouth. A deep silence descended. Neither the King nor Tiye moved, and Huy, free at last from an oppressive burden, felt a tide of giddy elation spread out from his dry throat and surge along his limbs, leaving them limp with relief. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Paneb dip his brush into the ink and hold it ready, but still the pair were motionless. A low murmur of conversation from the group of servants waiting outside the door came drifting faintly through the wood. The odour of Tiye’s perfume mingled with the King’s sweat. The blend seemed to intensify, hanging both acrid and unpleasantly magnetic in the still air. Finally Huy left the stool, and at his movement Amunhotep let go his grip on his wife’s fingers, unsteadily set the cup he had been holding on the table, and bent forward. When he spoke, his voice was reedy.

“Let me be sure I understand,” he said. “You are telling me that my son will grow up to be physically deformed, inherit the Horus Throne, blaspheme against every one of Egypt’s deities but the Visible Disc, and desert Amun’s home for a new city? This is the future Anubis showed you?”

“Yes, Majesty.”

“I will have no more legitimate sons besides Prince Thothmes, who is already destined to die, and my princely namesake, who will deliberately destroy everything precious in this country and leave us at the mercy of famine and disease?”

“Yes, Majesty. Since the day when Anubis showed me these things, when I took the baby’s hand in my own, I have been overwhelmed by what I saw and heard.”

“He will render Amun powerless?” The King looked increasingly puzzled, as though confused by Huy’s words and yet impelled to contradict their clarity.

Huy was about to reply when Tiye loudly slapped one hennaed palm on the surface of the table and sprang to her feet. “It’s a lie! All a lie!” she said through gritted teeth. “You gave this … this peasant more power to rule than anyone else in the realm, ignoring the years of faithful service my older brother Ay devoted to you, and my parents to your father before that! Anen, my younger brother, still wears the simple robes of a priest although he should be here at court where his talents would not be wasted. As for myself …” She faced her husband, placing both hands on the table and inclining stiff-armed towards him. “As for myself, my competence to govern Egypt is only required when the Son of Hapu is away on some errand of his own. This so-called vision is nothing but a ploy to make sure that every fully royal son dies. Then you will be forced to name one of the male bastards born to any one of your harem women as the Horus-in-the-Nest and grant him legitimization by marrying him to one of our daughters. And you may be sure that the boy will be chosen by Huy himself!”

Huy knelt, holding his arms out palms up in the universal gesture of submission. “Not only will he render Amun powerless, he will send masons throughout Egypt to obliterate the names of every god but the Aten,” he said clearly and deliberately to Amunhotep, forcing the King to hold his gaze. “In removing the name of Amun, he not only commits the gravest blasphemy against Egypt’s saviour, he annihilates you also. You are the Incarnation of Amun. Your name contains the name of the god, but if it is excised, your ka will be lost.”

“This is not to be believed.” Amunhotep shook his head and slumped back in his chair. “What have I done to deserve such a fate? What evil has Egypt done, that Ma’at should desert her? No, Uncle. Your vision must be false, and if not false, then you have misinterpreted what you saw.”

“What a kind assumption you make, my husband!” Tiye broke in sarcastically. She folded her arms and, brushing past Huy, began to pace. He was no longer able to read her expression. “How generous you are! ‘Misinterpreted’? What proof have we that our trusty mer kat was granted any vision at all? Only his word and the word of his scribe, who will of course swear on behalf of his master.”

Amunhotep ignored her. “I have known you all my life, Huy,” he said quietly, “and indeed when I was still a baby in my mother’s arms with no claim to the Horus Throne you saw me bathed in royal gold. Through the years you have served and protected me, and worked tirelessly to give me an empire. You’ve grieved with me at the deaths of my children, deaths predicted by your visions. It was very hard for you to tell me that my beloved Prince Thothmes would not outlive me. Now you confess a future for me and my country more terrible than I could ever have imagined.” His voice faltered. Lifting his cup from the table, he drank deeply, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his shift. “Without the history of many accurate Seeings behind you, I might agree with the Empress,” he continued. “As it is, we must discover how this future might be averted. Get up! And you, Tiye, such outbursts do no good. You hate Huy for matters beyond his control.”

On the contrary, you hate me for everything within my control, Huy thought as he regained the stool and watched her return to perch rigidly on the edge of her chair.

“There are many feast days for Osiris this month,” Amunhotep went on. “We will beg him for his wisdom, and you and I, Tiye, will process to Ipet-isut at every sunrise, and while the Holiest of Holiest is open so that the High Priest may minister to Amun, we will prostrate ourselves and ask what it is that we have done wrong.”

“But we’ve done nothing wrong!” Tiye protested hotly. “If the Son of Hapu speaks the truth, which I still doubt, the seeds of disaster are in our son, not in ourselves!” She reached across the little table and gripped his forearm with both hands. “We must watch over him at all times, choose his tutors with the utmost care, make sure he learns to sincerely venerate the gods, teach him the correct position the Visible Disc holds! Then he will have no inclination to drift into heresy.”

As Huy listened to their interchange, an agitation grew in him that he dared not show. Your father and grandfather openly preferred to worship the sun in all his aspects, and Ra’s priests encouraged the enmity that ensued between them and the servants of Amun. Amun is superior, the essence of godhead. The Aten is merely one of Ra’s energies, his rays of light, the Visible Disc striking the earth and becoming lions. Unfortunately, it’s a far more exciting concept for a boy to imagine than Amun the Great Cackler with his double plumes. Lions are the representations of the rays of both Amun and Ra. The Aten is the rays themselves. Aten worship has been a court religion for hentis. It’s always been too sophisticated, too complex, to appeal to the ordinary citizen. This second royal son will make it his obsession. “Majesty, Anubis did not so much as hint at a way out—none at all!” Huy addressed Tiye directly. “Everything I saw in that gleaming new city seemed distorted, every face in the crowd marked with a despair that only I could see. The Prince is already cursed. His affliction will spread.”

Amunhotep shook himself free of his wife’s grasp and, picking up his cup, stared into the dregs. The cup trembled in his grasp.

Tiye went very still. “Then what does Anubis want His Majesty to do with our poor little cursed Prince?” she whispered venomously, eyes half shut. “Surely he does not expect Amunhotep to violate a law of Ma’at and thus become a feast for Ammut beneath Ma’at’s scales in the Judgment Hall when his heart inevitably weighs more heavily than her feather? Oh, but I forgot.” She made a parody of recollection. “The King does not undergo the test of the Judgment Hall. He ascends to ride in the sacred barque with his royal ancestors. He is thus exempt from any punishment for his abuses—but Egypt is not. Egypt suffers in his place. So I ask you again, mer kat, Great Seer, what does Anubis expect my husband to do with his son? That is, if your vision spoke true at all.”

“Enough!” Amunhotep’s voice was unsteady. “Leave us alone now, Uncle. Go home and stay there until you’re summoned. Paneb, give me my copy of the Seeing. Send Nubti and Tiawi in at once. You’re both dismissed.”

Huy rose carefully. It was too much to expect that the King would simply take my word for this Seeing, he thought in a brief burst of panic that had every one of his muscles suddenly tensed for flight. When he reads the full account, it will seem so preposterous to him, so blasphemous, that any hope I had of belief on his part will be gone. As for Tiye, she will demand my punishment and use every argument she can muster against me. “Paneb, give me both scrolls,” he said quietly. Paneb left the floor with ease, reaching into his pouch and handing them over. Huy stood looking down at them, two neat curls of papyrus, while the rich possessions he had worked to amass over his lifetime grew flimsy, shredded, and blew away, leaving him as naked and vulnerable as a child.

“Majesty, I have not told you everything,” he said huskily, holding the scrolls out to him with shaking hands. “Many years ago, before you married Amunhotep, I Scryed for you, Tiye. Anubis showed me the King’s coronation day with you beside him, resplendent in the formal garb of a Queen, but that was only the first part of the vision. I kept the second part to myself because I wanted the marriage to take place, and the will of Atum was not clear. However, I did dictate all of it.” He swallowed. “The whole vision of the baby Prince Amunhotep’s future that I received is on this other scroll. Anubis showed me more than I have dared to say. I am too afraid to put it into words. You will understand when you read it, and I beg you, both of you, to remember as you do so that I have served Egypt and the Horus Throne with complete loyalty.”

Tiye’s arm went out, but Amunhotep snatched the scrolls first and held them securely in his lap. “Does anyone else know the full extent of what these contain?” he demanded sharply.

Huy hesitated before deciding that the time for deceit, even kindly deceit to spare another’s pain, was long past. “I discussed the contents of the older vision with your royal Mother in her capacity as Regent,” he acknowledged, and did not go on to say that Mutemwia had also thought it best to keep silent regarding any description in its entirety. Tiye had gone white. Both hennaed lips were clamped tightly closed. The King merely looked pensive.

“Dismissed, both of you,” he repeated. Huy and Paneb bowed themselves to the door. Tiye’s hostile eyes stayed on Huy, but Amunhotep’s gaze had returned to the scrolls he continued to hold firmly against his linen-draped thighs.

As soon as Huy stepped out into the passage, he knew the hyena was there. Its odour assailed his nostrils, a foul miasma far stronger than the tang that had invaded his bedchamber and more pungent than that of any wild animal. Resisting the urge to cover his mouth and nose, drained and on edge, he spoke quickly to Nubti and Tiawi, then started along the statue-lined way to the palace entrance, Paneb behind him. He could not think. He hardly saw the deferential comings and goings around him or heard any greeting. His ears were full of the soft, sinister footfalls only he could hear, and the slow panting of hot breath over a wet black tongue. Grimly, he prayed that in the sunlight flooding the vast stone concourse before the pillars of the reception hall the apparition would dissolve away or at least become invisible.

At first it seemed as though his prayer had been answered. The bearers saw him and came hurrying with the litters. He and Paneb got in, were lifted, and began the ride home, but one glance beyond the open curtains showed Huy the beast padding in the shadow abreast of his litter. When the bearers changed direction and the shadow moved, the hyena moved also, staying within its reach. Huy drew the curtains, closing himself in, and his head sank onto his raised knees. I am being haunted by a demon, he thought dully. Anubis has unleashed a member of his Khatyu against me—but for what reason? I have solved the riddle of the Book of Thoth. In spite of knowing that Tiye will do her best to ruin me or even have me killed, I have finally released the details of both Seeings. Atum is allowing me to age at last, I feel it; therefore he has no more use for me. Unless I’m required to go further, sacrifice myself, fill my heart so full of the heavy stones of evil that the scales will not balance and Ma’at will condemn me to annihilation. Huy groaned aloud. Murder a child and save Egypt, but destroy myself. Let him live and destroy Egypt, but in disobeying Anubis’s direct command to undo the damage my arrogance has already caused, condemn myself anyway. There is no choice at all—I am damned whatever I do. I used to hate you, Atum, for treating me as though, with the gift of Seeing you bestowed on me and the permission to read the Book of Thoth you granted me, you purchased my soul to do with as you pleased. As I grew, I came to understand and accept the uniqueness with which you compensated me. But now I will return to hating you. You and your mouthpiece Anubis are more cruel than any of us mortals. Huy knew that the clarity and venom of the words passing through his mind were largely a reaction against the tension of the morning, interspersed as they were with images of Tiye’s furious face and the King’s puzzlement. But the naked facts of Huy’s dilemma were undeniable. The presence of the hyena dogging his steps was also undeniable. Nauseated and oddly cold, Huy hugged his knees and gave himself up to despair.

Amunmose and Kenofer were waiting for him as he entered his house. Paneb left him to file away the record of the meeting with the King and Tiye, and his steward and body servant approached him, but suddenly Huy could not move. A paralysis of mind and body had seized him so that the faces of his servants and the details of his surroundings were all at once unfamiliar. Only the hyena had substance. It squatted beside him, so close to his naked calf that he could feel the heat of its body. A need to look down at it grew in him, a conviction that reality would quickly warp out of all recognition unless he did so. With a flicker of rebellion and fear, he compelled his head to turn, his gaze to drop. The creature was peering up at him, and as their eyes met, the room and the people in it regained perspective.

Both men were watching him cautiously. “Rakhaka is keeping the noon meal hot for you, Master,” Amunmose said. “Will you eat?”

“No.” With an effort of the will Huy thrust the instant of distortion away. “Kenofer, bring me poppy, and you, Amunmose, find Perti. I want to see both of you immediately.” Amunhotep would never harm me, Huy thought as he walked through the hall towards the stairs, but Tiye would not hesitate to have me assassinated if she believed that my death would somehow change her son’s destiny. In spite of her bluster, she knows that my visions do not lie. Reaching his bedchamber, he shook off his sandals and exchanged the blue shirt and kilt for a white shift. Lifting the lid of one of his cedar tiring chests, he felt past the neatly folded clothes to the boxes beneath. Most of them held jewellery and treasured mementoes from the past. Huy drew out one of them, slightly longer and less ornate than the others, and untying the cord that kept it closed, he took out a dagger. He had not held it for many years. Thothmes had given it to him on a Naming Day long gone, partly as a joke but mainly so that he might carry a weapon at his waist during one of his official journeys away from Egypt. The blade was of plain iron, but the haft was of gold inlaid with buttons of red carnelian, crafted so that a hand might grasp it smoothly. Huy hefted it briefly, aware that the hyena was watching him from a corner of the room, then replaced it in its box and carried it to the chair beside his couch.

Kenofer knocked and entered. Huy had just passed the empty opium vial back to him when Perti swung through the doorway, followed by Amunmose. Perti bowed briskly, bringing with him an odour of worn leather and dust that momentarily overlaid the hyena’s stench. Huy regarded him carefully. Pharaoh’s Commander-in-Chief Wesersatet had occasionally approached Huy with a request for Perti’s service in the army and the promise to Perti himself of a division to administer, but Perti had always refused. “With you I travel the empire, Master,” he had explained to Huy. “I learn of new weapons and tactics, I have the opportunity to observe the great of many lands, and best of all you give me full authority to organize the defence of your household and the activities of your spies. I answer to no one but you. Where else would I enjoy such freedom and responsibility?” Now he stood waiting, his eyes on Huy, Amunmose beside him.

“Kenofer, close the door,” Huy said. “Perti, how many soldiers are in my employ?”

“Fifty at present,” Perti replied promptly. “Wesersatet approved an increase from the usual twenty when your partner Prince Amunnefer needed your guards to assist his in the protection of the poppy fields. The arouras are completely open, as you know. Ten men are away in Punt with the myrrh caravan. Thirty stand watch in the house and grounds and accompany you when you go to the palace or into the city. Master, why do you ask?”

Perti had earned the right to question him. So had Kenofer and Amunmose, although Kenofer seldom did so. Huy cast about for a way to tell them that his life might be in danger without having to provide clarification, but before he could do so, Amunmose spoke up.

“You’re afraid, aren’t you, Huy? We’ve known each other for hentis and I can interpret your moods almost as well as Anhur could. In the few days since you returned from Iunu you’ve been distraught, not sleeping or eating, and standing in the hall a while ago after your visit to the palace I saw you completely lost. If an angry ghost was seeking revenge on you, you would be sending for an exorcist, not for us.” He made a wide gesture that included the other two. “We’re not asking why, only what we must do.”

“Thank you, Amunmose. All I may say is this: I have made Their Majesties very distressed, so much so that one or both of them might try to kill me. Amunmose, let no food into the kitchens that you haven’t procured yourself from the market or the garden, and warn Rakhaka to stop sampling the meals as he cooks.” Perti’s black eyebrows rose. He opened his mouth to protest, but Huy forestalled him. “No one is to risk death on my behalf. Perti, delegate a soldier to be with Amunmose at all times and have guards appointed to keep watch in the kitchens. Kenofer, the only water I’ll drink will be carried from the river by you and there’ll be another soldier to help you. No wine or beer to come from open containers. Perti, have this knife sharpened for me and bring it back. Impress on your men that no one is to be allowed onto the estate or into the house, and if there are messages for me, they must be left at the gate. Perti, I want you outside my door day and night. Kenofer can bring a pallet and bedding for you.” He handed Perti the dagger.

“Master, do you really believe that our Horus or the Goddess would deliberately break a law of Ma’at because you have distressed them?” The voice was Kenofer’s. “The balance of Ma’at is not disturbed by the condemnation of a criminal justly tried before the judges, but a secret murder by the One who stands in the Holiest of Holiest on our behalf will be seen by the gods as a transgression committed by all of us—every Egyptian.”

Only until the One enters into the transforming ritual of the heb sed, Huy thought, moved by the innocent perplexity suffusing his body servant’s face. Then he truly becomes a god in the flesh, no longer accountable for anything he has done. Few down the ages have really believed this. In fact, only a tiny handful of those who have followed the Book of Thoth to its end have been aware that it is more than an account of creation or a series of manuals explaining how to acquire the skills of magic or read the stars. “I have grieved them greatly, particularly the Empress,” Huy told him. “I expect to be summoned back to the palace, but in the meantime I need you all to keep me safe.” I no longer trust Anubis to do that, Huy’s bitter thoughts ran on. He glanced to the corner beyond the shrine to Khenti-kheti. The hyena was staring back at him. With an effort, he pulled himself out of the chair. “You’re dismissed. Kenofer, I’ll take my afternoon sleep now. Please take the mourning clothes away.”

It did no good to appear in blue today, he told himself as the servants filed out and the door was closed. Neither Amunhotep nor Tiye recognized or shared the grief for Egypt herself that imbued my vision with such horror and sadness. “Stay or go, I don’t care,” Huy said to the creature crouching in the dimness. Crawling onto his couch, he pulled the sheet up over himself and determinedly closed his eyes.

He began to dream of frogs, dozens of them, crawling over each other at his feet. They were all black. A strong light shone from somewhere behind him and he was casting an elongated shadow so deep that it was difficult to see one creature divided from another, but he could feel their cold sliminess against his skin. He half turned in order to see them more clearly, kicking at them as he did so. The light moved with him, settling at his back again. Plunging both hands into the seething mass of tiny bodies, Huy began to fling them away, but the more feverishly he dug into the repulsive pile, the faster their number increased. Waking with a cry, he fought himself free of his sweat-soaked sheet and hastily left the couch, expecting to see it and the floor around him alive with frogs; but there was nothing, only the hyena engaged in delicately licking its paws. For once it was not staring at him. All its attention appeared to be fixed on cleaning itself. I wish you were still alive, Henenu, Huy whispered to himself, standing watching it. From the time you came to Hut-herib to exorcise me and found no demon, you became my protector from the evil forces wanting to ruin me and the gift of Seeing. I grew to love you, to trust your judgment. If you were here, you could tell me why that bau haunts me, why it takes the form of an offal eater, why it is blacker than any moonless night, who sent it to torment me. There’s no one left alive to confide in—only Thothmes, who would listen but could offer no help. I dare not approach any priest with this, not even the archivist at Mennofer, particularly now, when my position as mer kat is threatened, let alone my life, and I must betray no weakness. More than anything, I wish that I might stare into my copper mirror and be given a vision of my own future! The animal had finished washing itself and had resumed its steady but oddly indifferent gaze at him, and Huy shouted for Kenofer, wanting to sluice away not only his own rank smell but the repugnant feel of the frogs’ cold scum lingering on his feet.

Over Perti’s objections, Huy had an awning erected on the grass by the garden, where he dictated a letter to Thothmes and Nasha and then lay on his back, hands behind his head, and tried to think of nothing at all. The estate was quiet, the heat slowly intensifying. A letter had come from the steward of Huy’s holdings in the north. Henenu had left her estate in the oasis to him. The soil around the lake of Ta-she was particularly fertile, and the abundant crops grown there added to Huy’s wealth year by year. He was careful to take the steward’s advice regarding what to plant, but now the scroll lay unread, rustling in the breeze where Paneb had left it, inches from the hyena sitting motionless beside Huy. Perti and several of his soldiers were standing guard within earshot. The quiet conversation of two passing servants seemed to embody the timelessness of the season. But Huy, outwardly relaxed, knew that unless he kept his eyes closed and his mind distracted, he would leap up screaming and run to the gate, through the opium fields, into the muddy depths of the dwindling river, and embrace at last a welcome oblivion where his ghostly shadow could not follow.

Many times in the days when he and Ishat had lived together in the slums of Hut-herib and he was driving himself to exhaustion in Atum’s service, they had answered an urgent request for a Seeing only to enter some poverty-stricken hut and find a child already drowned. Huy, kneeling helplessly beside the pallid grey flesh and colourless eyes of the little corpse, would feel the desperation of the parents and, even worse, their frantic hope. Lay your hands on my baby and bring her back to life. You have the power. The gods gave it to you when they made you live again and granted you the gift of Seeing and healing. Were your parents more deserving than us? Were you? Why you and not my baby? Why will you not help us? The accusation would hang unspoken in the air. He had heard it before. He had tried to explain something that even he did not understand, and in the end he had given up. Now he clung to the memories of those times, allowing them to blend with a desire for his own death so that the noisy street on which they had lived, the food they had eaten, even the vibrant personality of Ishat herself, became part of a losing struggle against the relentless omnipresence of the flood itself.

All the rest of the afternoon, he managed to keep himself in the gloom of a Hut-herib of distorted invention so that by the time Amunmose came to summon him to the evening meal he had almost forgotten the curse that now followed him everywhere. By the time he unwillingly entered his bedchamber for the night, there had still been no message from the palace.