City of the Dead

selected.’
    ‘Who is he?’
    ‘Prince Zannanzash.’
    ‘Of the Hittites?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Why?’ Huy found it hard to conceal his consternation.
    ‘Their armies threaten us. The marriage would mean unity. ‘
    ‘But who would control the Black Land? Would you be pharaoh, or consort?’
    ‘He would be consort.’
    Huy hesitated before replying. ‘How far is this plan advanced?’
    ‘I have sent a messenger to him. Soon he will set out for the Southern Capital.’
    ‘With an army?’
    ‘With an escort. He will come in peace. I do this for my dead husband. He wished to ensure peace in the Black Land. To block my grandfather and Horemheb.’
    For how long, thought Huy, but said nothing. Instead, storing the knowledge up, and wondering who else had it, he decided on a different tack. ‘Have you seen Nezemmut since her wedding? Talked to her?’
    ‘No. She lived so long under my mother’s shadow that she was a woman before her sun rose. Now she has her moment of glory in the face of Ra. I am an uncomfortable reminder of her past.’
    Huy, bowing first, drank wine. He sank his head on his chest. ‘I want to help you,’ he said.
    ‘There was a time when I could command. Now I must ask. But if a time of power came again — ’ She broke off.
    ‘I want to help you,’ repeated Huy, formally. ‘But I must tell you that I already have a commission in this matter.’
    She looked at him, and her expression contained fear, anger, defiance and hope.
    Ay has already asked me to find out what happened.’
    Has he?’ Her voice gave nothing away; but it did not save from the candour of her eyes.
    Huy told her what he had already found out, keeping back y those details which might injure her. He left the palace at nightfall, glad that the protagonists in the drama where he played a small role were too busy watching each other to pay much attention to him.

    Meanwhile, Ineny had done his work well, and arranged an interview with Ay. The old man did not begrudge this. He struck Huy as one who would do anything without complaint even to the injury of his self-esteem, if it furthered his ambition. He reminded the scribe of those people who keep the rudder of their life-ship under a firm hand, always looking towards a distant but fixed goal. At the age of twenty they know what they wish to have achieved by fifty. They set sail, and in due time they arrive at the distant port. Huy did not know whether such people were to be envied or pitied.
    ‘I need to talk to the doctors who examined him.’
    Ay’s expression did not change. ‘Why? Is there doubt that it was an accident?’
    ‘There is some.’
    Now the old man looked at him keenly. ‘What doubt?’
    ‘I am collecting information. But I must speak to the doctors if I am to give you a case.’
    ‘The doctors may be Horemheb’s men.’
    ‘Horemheb is not so powerful that he has everybody in his pocket. He cannot yet do precisely as he pleases.’
    These words gratified Ay. ‘That is true. It is as bad to overestimate as to underestimate,’ he said. Huy wondered what the old man’s assessment of him was. He knew that he was involved in what was, for him, a dangerous game; but he was in no doubt of where his loyalties lay. He did not care for Ay or Horemheb, or anyone who took it that a country was merely an accessory of their own personality, an ornament for the overweening little god within them. He would have liked to see both these jockeying men devoured by crocodiles. But in truth, he knew that one of them would soon be pharaoh.
    As he left, Ineny gave him the names of the two doctors. Both were high officials at the House of Healing, though twenty years separated them. The younger was in his twenties; the older, close to fifty. Huy decided to visit the younger man first.

    Merinakhte was from the south. He had the tall, lean built of a desert dweller, a sour mouth and dry, professional eyes.
    He received Huy in a low, dark room on the ground floor of the House of Healing. The weather had turned humid, and Huy, who suffered badly when the atmosphere was moist, was painfully aware of how much he was sweating in the heat. He was dressed in a plain kilt and a simple, light headdress, but nevertheless he could feel the water run from under his hair down his neck, and gather round his waist, trickling down his legs.
    He was equally aware of the disdain with which Merinakhte regarded him. The young doctor did his best to disguise this, though his own