City of the Dead

king’s death. Horaha exchanged more frequent glances with his daughter, and even their posture began to betray the anxiety they felt. Huy could not ignore this.
    ‘You tell me you believe Nebkheprure Tutankhamun died accidentally,’ he said. ‘But your faces and your bodies tell me a different story.’ He looked from one to the other, but neither would meet his eye. ‘Do not be concerned that this conversation will be repeated farther than is necessary. It is the truth that we want.’ Huy chose his words carefully, if you believe that the king died by someone’s hand, do you not think that his Ka will not see you as accomplices if you do not speak of it?’
    ‘Perhaps the Black Land has reached a point where the living great are more to be feared than the dead,’ said Senseneb finally. Her father bowed his head. Huy realised that he had played his petty official role too well. They would never trust him with open hearts. But Senseneb had already said too much.
    ‘What do you mean?’ he asked her quickly.
    Her eyes blazed at last. ‘I mean that there is little room for truth.’
    Horaha raised his hand too late to stop her speaking. Now he let it fall.
    ‘You had better tell me what you think,’ Huy said to him, but without threat in his voice. He wished he could be honest with this man, and tell him that in truth he represented the interests of the queen. He knew without being told that they thought the king’s death was no accident, and had sound reasons for that belief; but even if he were frank with them, would they believe him?
    Huy told himself to be patient. Perhaps he could come back, once he had gathered more information, and lay it before them-Then they might exchange their knowledge for his, and he would have the foundations of a badly-needed alliance with which to help the queen. But for the moment he could not know, or risk too much intimacy. It was frustrating that a lack of trust kept him from knowing exactly what conclusions Horaha had drawn from his examination of the king; but perhaps it was as important to know that they existed. And unless they were past masters, both Horaha and his daughter were amateurs in the aft of subterfuge. If he had not been on their side, they had already given him enough to destroy them.
    ‘My father has told you all he can,’ said Senseneb as she walked him to the gate. ‘There is no doubt that the king’s death was a tragic accident.’
    ‘It leaves the queen badly exposed,’ said Huy, deliberately dropping his guard at this unexpected opportunity.
    ‘But that is simply the will of the gods,’ she replied, looking at him. ‘Wouldn’t you say?’
    ‘If Tutankhamun’s death was an accident, yes.’
    She looked at him more closely. ‘Do you think otherwise?’ Huy did not answer. Senseneb’s expression changed, and he knew that she was wondering whether her first assessment of him was correct. He left her with the question in her mind, still unsure if the seeds of an alliance were here. His main concern was that he had impulsively laid himself open to betrayal. But he could not see Senseneb or her father as servants of Horemheb. And he hoped that they would not be left with the impression that he was.

    It was late when he left the beautiful house in the doctors’ compound. What a perfect place it seemed, and yet how sad and confused were its occupants. Huy, thrust out of the quiet and secure life he had trained for, which was all he had ever wanted, had come with time to know that such a life does not exist. In such a house, in such a garden, he might still have believed it possible. But he knew that in the end the only quiet place, the only cool pool beside which he could sit in total security, was the one buried at the centre of his heart.
    Unfortunately walls were not enough to shut out life.
    He made his way under the lengthening shadows of the sycamores and acacias down through the town towards the harbour quarter, but he did not go home immediately. Instead, he headed for the string of eating houses which ran along the quay where the broad-bottomed bullion barges were tied up. A scattered light from their frontage was thrown against the implacable darkness which was gathering over the River. Very faintly, through the haze, the fires of the workmen engaged in their never-ending task of tomb excavation glowed on the West Bank.
    Huy wondered how work on Tutankhamun’s hastily-prepared grave was progressing. He had heard that it was