City of the Dead

handful of years earlier, it had been bought for him by Ipuky, the Controller of the Silver Mines, and a man to whom he had been able to be of service. As a result of the work he had done at that time, a corrupt chief scribe had been exposed, and a vile brothel was closed; but although Ipuky, an official of high enough rank to have the ear of Horemheb, had interceded for him, credit for the investigation had gone to the priest-administrator officially in charge, Kenamun. That had rankled with Huy. He knew that Kenamun himself had murdered a Babylonian prostitute, but the priest-administrator’s rank had protected him from accusation, and Huy had had to accept defeat, taking consolation in the fact that public praise for him might have attracted unwelcome attention from Horemheb. Being human, however, it had been some time before he ceased to wish both men thrown to the crocodiles.

    She awoke, immediately aware that her husband was already conscious, lying there in the darkness, staring at nothing, troubled by thoughts he only grudgingly shared with her, but which she found easy to guess. It was the lack of a child that kept him from sleep.
    She sighed as softly as she could, so as not to let him know that she was awake, but she felt tension run through his muscles and knew that she had not kept her secret. He did not speak to her however, and for a long time they lay in silence, listening to the muffled island of sound that came from the feast in Horemheb’s house on the other side of the palace compound. It had been a long day and she was tired — tired from the heavy regalia, and tired from the rich food and the wine.
    In the darkness his hand found hers and grasped it. She curled her fingers gratefully round his, but did not know whether this affection proceeded from his heart or just from kindness. She was jealous of all that he kept back from her. She hated her body. Why would it not produce a child that lived? Only six months had passed since Horemheb’s marriage, and now they were celebrating her aunt’s pregnancy. Nezemmut, so much older than she, had peopled her birth-cave with no effort. Of what value, then, had their own six months of prayer and sacrifice to the gods of fertility been? Were the gods as stony as their images?
    His hand moved up to her face and she turned it away so that he could not feel the tears on her cheeks. Perhaps her birth-cave was as barren as the City of the Horizon where she had been born: a city of the dead.
    ‘It will be all right,’ came the king’s voice. He spoke with a gentleness that surprised her. ‘The gods are leading Horemheb on in order to destroy him. As for the child that is coming to him, it will never sit on the Golden Chair.’
    ‘I want you to be sure. I want you to have a direct heir.’
    He put an arm round her. ‘I will. We will.’
    ‘Why do the gods not hear us? You are one of them. Or can Horemheb order them about as he does everyone else?’ Tutankhamun fought down anger at her remark, telling himself that he had to indulge the candour of someone who was, after all, not much more than a child.
    ‘His days of giving orders are all but over.’
    ‘And Ay?’ she asked, not forgetting the other enemy.
    ‘He is already out of the game.’
    Ankhsenpaamun did not make any comment. She did not agree with her husband, but did not know why, and so decided to keep her silence. The king stroked her brow gently, wishing that tiredness and the nagging interruption of his thoughts were not preventing him from showing even the pretence of desire. He turned his heart to the plans that he had begun to lay secretly, not telling anyone except the few trusted men of his household who would carry them out. He did not feel that everything could be confidently left to the gods to sort out. In any case, he had to do something, and, unfocused as his plans were, it comforted him to consider them as they began to develop.
    He soothed her back to sleep, thinking how young she was. Little Ankhsi, with her slim arms and her little breasts that barely showed. Would she ever grow into the strong, voluptuous woman her aunt had become? She seemed to the king like a flower on the point of opening.
    Tutankhamun did not return to sleep so easily himself, though the regular breathing of his wife, its faint breeze on his chest, soothed him in turn. He had awakened from a dream of hunting. The sand had been hard under the wheels of his lightest chariot, drawn by his two favourite