City of the Dead

visit will remain.’

    Huy spent much of the day down by the harbour. His wound throbbed, but he had no mirror to see what it looked like, and he had no intention of returning to Senseneb. Here, although he drew a few glances, people were too busy to pay much attention to him as he joined the usual bunch of quayside loafers watching the barges loading and unloading. Wide cedar barges from the northern country east of the Great Green, where the trees grew; gold carriers from the south. Limestone from the north, sandstone and granite from the First Cataract.
    Three falcon ships were loading a regiment to head north to the Delta. Couriers had brought news that a Hittite army was gathering and rumours had its destination as the northern desert. The soldiers were conscripts - young, dusty and apprehensive, peasant boys who everyone hoped would be back by the time the flood had subsided, to work the black silt at the beginning of peret.
    Huy searched among the ships for one belonging to Taheb's fleet, but he did not see one, or a single face he knew. The day passed slowly, but there would be no point in visiting Nubenehem until the evening. Then, if she had been successful in fulfilling Huy’s request, everything would have to m0ve quickly. Although Ay had reacted to Huy’s plan with scepticism, he had not dismissed it out of hand. Huy would not be forced to stage manage the whole thing on his own now, and his appeal for funds had not been rejected; but Ay had outmanoeuvred him, and he still could not bring himself to trust his new and enforced ally completely.
    At last the shadows lengthened and the sun lost its heat, turning a deep red and growing as it always did when it approached the daily moment of its death, dipping with emerald flashes below the edge of the world to warm the empire of Osiris below. The crowd of porters and tradesmen, hawkers and longshoremen, sailors and idlers, dispersed quickly to their homes or to the eating and drinking houses whose owners were already lighting the sparse lamps hanging from mud brick walls. Huy made his way up the sloping street that led to the alleyways of the harbour quarter, and reached the door of the City of Dreams just as dusk was ceding the palm to night.
    Nubenehem looked up as he entered. He could tell at once that she had no good news for him.
    ‘What did you expect?’ she said, it was a crazy idea.’
    ‘There’s still time.’
    Nubenehem laughed. ‘Not a chance. I’ve already asked around - and that kind of request makes people ask questions. If you want to keep whatever it is you’re up to a secret, then don’t ask me for help.’ She paused for a moment. ‘And there’s no refund.’
    ‘Give it one more try. There’s still a day.’
    ‘I’m not sticking my neck out any further.’ The fat woman’s face was closed. ‘The way things are going in this town, it is bad business to do favours, even little ones, for friends.’
    ‘You took the silver quickly enough.’
    Nubenehem glared at him. ‘I’m not Hathor. I can’t help you.’
    Huy left. His heart was racing, but he told himself that the idea had been too dependent on chance in the first place. He would have to get Ankhsenpaamun out without faking her death, and take the chances of pursuit. He made his way to his house cautiously and watched it from a distance but it, and the square, were deserted. He could not go to Senseneb, for he did not know if Merinakhte would be keeping watch. He thought of Taheb, but quickly rejected the idea. Facing a fact that he had long been aware of, but avoided, that the kind of life he led made his existence friendless, he turned back to the harbour, and the lights of the drinking houses.

    At dawn Ineny stood in his master’s workroom, thinking about the narrow escape he had had. Though he had long since stowed the leather bag of gold which Kenamun had given him so contemptuously, his hand still remembered its weight. The humiliation had stung him, but what horrified him most was the thought of the risk he had taken. He sweated with relief at the balancing thought, that he had got away with it, and was still on the winning side. Kenamun was dead. Horemheb had better things to do than betray him to Ay, but had shown no sign that he wished to buy him over to his side. Ineny now thought of the man whom, only hours earlier, he had tried to destroy, with warmth and gratitude. Once Ay was pharaoh what avenues would not be opened to him?
    The work table was bare of