City of the Dead

of wood joined by thin wire, and a stick. He wrapped the wire under Nehesy’s left knee and twisted it tight with the stick until blood and muscle burst out and the wire grated on bone. Nehesy screamed with a violence and at a volume which made even the hard skulls of the young torturers crawl.
    ‘Save yourself,’ Kenamun said softly, after the scream had subsided into a sobbing whimper. ‘Bravery never mattered, never changed anything. Why give yourself all this grief?’
    Nehesy spoke at last, bringing his torturer into focus. ‘May Set shit in your mouth.’
    Kenamun blinked once. Perhaps the man really knew nothing. But no, that could not be. He was an experienced huntsman, he had been with the king on the last expedition. He was bound to have had suspicions. Inwardly, the police chief cursed. They had been too confident, too arrogant.
    ‘He can’t take any more now,’ he said. ‘Give him an hour.’ He looked at Nehesy. ‘Show some sense then, or we’ll start on your teeth. Then your other eye. Then your prick. Think about it.’
    ‘Shall we clean him up?’ asked one of the thugs as he turned to go. Was he imagining more faintheartedness?
    ‘No,’ said Kenamun.

EIGHT

    ‘Why?’ Ineny drank fastidiously from his cup of pomegranate wine. ‘Because I don’t think he will have the courage to do anything in the end. That is why.’
    Huy, sitting across from him, looked out to where the River had turned a deeper shade of red. The flood was coming. Soon it would be upon them. The chroniclers and measurers of the inundation predicted a strong rise in the water level this year. There would be a good crop later. Peasants talked of the departed pharaoh’s last gift to his people. But in the city the talk was of his successor. Too much time had passed without a nomination, though that morning the official inquiry into Tutankhamun’s death had at last come up with its unsurprising finding: death by misadventure.
    ‘People are becoming impatient,’ continued Ineny. if Ay does not move soon he will lose initiative and perhaps the chance to move at all.’
    ‘It is better to prepare your ground before you move, to be certain that your footing will be sure.’
    ‘Oh, of course,’ said Ineny sarcastically. Huy returned his smile. They had met by chance in the street that afternoon, and Ineny had invited him to share a bottle. It had been an excuse for two off-duty employees to swap opinions about their master. Ineny had thrown off all reserve, and now, relaxed, chatting, he was a different person. At first it had been Huy who had held up his guard, since a chance meeting this type very often turned out to be arranged; but if it had been Ineny’s intention to pump him, then either he was very bad at it or he had been sidetracked by his own preoccupations, because nothing had been demanded of Huy other than polite interjections and the occasional bland statement, to show that he was paying attention.
    Ineny was principally affected by the consideration that he had thrown in his lot with the wrong man. Huy sought to reassure him and retain his trust without appearing to be too anxious to do so. Ineny was in on too many of Huy’s secrets to be treated off-handedly.
    ‘I always wondered if he’d have the courage to stand up to Horemheb,’ he was saying mournfully. ‘Now I’m proved right. But it’s too late for me to change sides. I’m a marked man.’
    ‘Do you really want to?’
    ‘I want to get on. That means following the right leader.’
    ‘I wouldn’t give up Ay yet.’
    Ineny looked at him, and drank some more wine.
    ‘I’ve been with him since he returned to the Southern Capital. He was always so hungry for power — he managed his life so well. But now that the Golden Chair is within his grasp, he hesitates.’
    ‘Gathering strength before he jumps.’
    ‘Do you think so?’ Ineny raised his eyebrows hopefully just as Huy was beginning to think that he had thrown in one platitude too many. But for Huy there was nothing disappointing in Ay’s caution. It was to his caution that Huy owed his survival. However, he was not going to spell that out for Ineny. He would be interested to see which way the little man would jump. Ineny was a small piece on the senet board; but he was in an important position.
    Huy could not afford to relax. He knew the real reason for Ay’s hesitation — Ineny had not been present for all of his own interview with the old Master of Horse - and he also knew