17

THAT NIGHT HE DREAMED OF FROGS again, but this time he was struggling for breath in the deep waters of the lake fronting the wide forecourt to Ra’s temple while the ugly creatures swarmed over and around him, trying to hold him down. He and Thothmes had been walking past the entrance to Ra’s outer court on their way to the practice ground, Thothmes gauntleted in preparation for a lesson with the chariot master and Huy with his bow slung over one shoulder. I’ve been attacked, Huy thought, lungs bursting, arms and legs flailing as he struggled to free himself from the smothering mass of bodies. Sennefer knocked me into the lake with his throwing stick. Where have all these frogs come from? Why are they trying to drown me? Thothmes, help me! Help me! Where are you? He felt his consciousness begin to fade. Unable to hold his breath any longer, he exhaled. Panic overtook him as his mouth filled with water and something more, something worse. Frogs were sitting on his tongue, grazing the back of his throat. He retched, and then the panic turned to madness. Thothmes’ hand gripped his shoulder, but it was too late—he was dead.

“Master, you must wake up! Wake up! The Queen is here!”

Huy opened his eyes onto darkness. In a moment of confusion he expected to find himself in the Judgment Hall facing Ma’at and her scales, but instead he was on his couch, entangled in his sheet, and Perti was bending over him. He struggled to sit up. His head was thick and aching and his throat was sore.

“Perti,” he croaked. “I was a student again, twelve years old and dying in Ra’s lake. What’s happening?”

Perti stepped away to make room for Kenofer, who was carrying a bowl of water that he set on the bedside table. Swiftly he pulled Huy’s twisted sheet away and, tossing it on the floor, urged Huy to his feet. “The Queen is in your office, Huy. She walked here from the palace with only Wesersatet to guard her. She must see you at once.” Perti had gone out into the passage while he was speaking and returned with a lamp.

Huy’s wits had come back. He glanced sharply at his captain’s drawn features. “She’s in my office alone? You left her alone?”

“No. Two of your soldiers are with her. I’ve woken Paneb.”

Whatever she has to say won’t be recorded, Huy thought, shivering briefly as Kenofer’s wet cloth moved over him. Otherwise she’d have summoned me to the palace. This matter is entirely secret.

“I’m sorry that the water is cold,” Kenofer said. “I was unable to—”

“It doesn’t matter. Get me a clean kilt. Wake Paroi and have him bring date wine and something to eat to the office. And Kenofer, make sure the wine is unopened and the food’s been under the guard’s eye since it was sent back to the kitchens after the evening meal. Tell Paroi not to offer any of it before I arrive. Perti, come with me, but I want you to stand outside the office where Wesersatet will be.”

Kenofer had finished his cursory wash and had gone to one of Huy’s chests, extracting a kilt and coming to wrap it around Huy’s waist before hurrying away. I won’t wear sandals, Huy thought as he followed Kenofer into the passage, Perti behind him. I can run better in bare feet. Then he laughed aloud, an abrupt bark without humour. If Tiye has already conceived of a way to put an end to me and this is her first move, then no escape as crude as physical flight will succeed, he acknowledged to himself, not even if I take the long journey into a self-imposed exile somewhere on the edge of the empire.

Paneb and the customary household guard at the foot of the stairs both looked up as he and Perti descended. Apart from slightly swollen eyelids and an unpainted face, Paneb gave no indication that he had been roused from a deep sleep. He was fully dressed and shod. A droplet of gold hung from one lobe and the red carnelian sweret bead inscribed with Thoth’s hieroglyph and Paneb’s name hung as usual on his chest. He bowed to Huy, his palette tucked comfortably under his arm, and for the hundredth time Huy blessed the day when the scribe had entered his employ. “Be as unobtrusive as you can,” he told Paneb as together they turned away from the front of the house and started along the gloomy corridor lined with closed doors leading to the rear gardens. Huy could see the vague shape of Pharaoh’s Commander-in-Chief standing outside the office. Perti moved deftly ahead, his hand going to the hilt of his sword. As they came up to Wesersatet, he bowed.

“I am here only to accompany Her Majesty,” he said. “She understands your increased security, Great Seer, and knows that in any case she is perfectly safe beneath your roof.” Huy nodded, Perti took up his position beside the Commander, and Huy opened the door. He did not knock.

His soldiers were stationed to each side of the figure sitting behind the desk, a respectful but watchful distance away from her. A dun-coloured cloak had been flung over the back of a second chair in front. The desk itself held a small pile of scrolls. Two alabaster lamps burned steadily beside them, casting a peaceful glow into the room that encompassed not only the surface of the desk but the woman who perched with knees to her chin under the voluminous white linen gown that covered her from neck to ankles. Her arms were folded across her knees. A pair of tiny leather sandals had been tossed under the desk. She did not stir as Huy came forward and halted, astonished. He and Paneb prostrated themselves. As he knelt, Huy saw a dark, ungainly shape melt into the shadows lurking in one of the far corners. The hyena. He closed his eyes and pressed his nose against the tiles. There was a long period of silence. Slowly the mixed perfume of lotus, narcissus, and henna in satke oil began to tickle Huy’s nostrils. One of the lamps sputtered. Then she sighed.

“Dismiss your guards, Huy,” she said. She had not given him permission to rise. Craning his head to one side, he gave the order. The two men reverenced her and strode past Huy and Paneb, both still embarrassingly supine, and the door closed quietly behind them.

There was another silence, this one pregnant with uneasy expectancy. Huy heard a creak and rustle as she left the chair, and when she spoke again he realized that she was directly above him. “Get up, both of you,” she ordered. “Paneb, you may make notes, but afterwards the scroll is mine.” Huy regained his feet and at once she raised her face to him. “You agreed to come to me first when you returned from Mennofer. You did not do so. The King is thoroughly drunk and Tiye has shut herself up in the nursery with her little Prince and screams death to anyone who tries to reason with her. Apparently you have turned all the nursery staff into assassins. I have been obliged to take her place during the morning audiences and make the rounds of the administrative offices. I am not pleased. If you had related the vision to me, we might have avoided these consequences.”

With a rush of affection, Huy scrutinized the delicate features. Scoured of paint, the fans of lines at her temples and running from her nostrils to either side of her mouth were clearly visible. The long cap of gleaming black hair was slivered through with streaks of grey. But the small, graceful hands and lithe movements of her body belied her age.

“Majesty, I could not in good conscience keep my word to you,” Huy answered. “The things I saw belonged directly to the King and the Empress.”

“And not to Egypt? The deformed King and his heresy will do more harm to this beloved country than any transgression of yours.”

“You’ve read the scroll.”

“Of course. Both of them.” She gathered up the folds of her gown and, pacing back to the desk, settled herself on the chair behind it. At once her heels sought the edge of the chair. Tugging the capacious linen down over her shins, she rested both outstretched arms on her hidden knees, and at the gesture Huy found himself back in the office of his home at Hut-herib with her little son asleep upstairs in the care of Royal Nurse Heqarneheh and he and she deep in an intimate conversation that might continue for hours as the night waxed and then gradually waned towards the dawn. Neither she nor Egypt’s Horus-in-the-Nest liked to take to their couches early, he remembered. Prince Amunhotep required story after story, and Huy had often met his mother wandering through the house or in the garden when everyone else in the household was asleep. He and she had developed a close bond. Huy had never overstepped the gulf of blood and station between them, but they had come to trust and respect one another. Mutemwia’s approach to chairs in the privacy of Huy’s home had been decidedly informal, and with a pang of homesickness for the past and genuine love for this royal woman Huy watched her succumb to an old habit. She waved him down into the opposite chair.

“Amunhotep and I have always been close, and the link between us became even stronger during my years as his Regent,” she continued. “He confides everything in me eventually. He confides in Tiye also, but if he needs advice he can trust he comes to me. He doesn’t need to seek advice from you, Huy. He made you mer kat. He knows that you make excellent decisions and carry them out and thus Egypt prospers without the necessity for him to do anything more than stand between the gods and the people. Yes, he’s lazy and I’m sorry for it, but it does make him easy to control.” She grimaced. “At least, that was true until you neglected your duties and left for Mennofer.” Huy began to protest, but she held up a warning hand. “Tiye took over your responsibilities. You knew she would, didn’t you? The scrolls sent north to you merely let you know what decisions she had taken. Not one refutation came back from you. Our administrators were compelled to do her bidding whether they agreed with her policies or not.”

“Majesty, you know why I had to leave Weset,” Huy protested, “and while I was away I read every letter. There was nothing to refute. Tiye and I used to work together regularly in the ministries. Her judgments were sound.”

“That’s not the point. You must take control of Egypt again, before Tiye has completely won the loyalties of the governors and administrators. A Queen in charge of the country sets a dangerous precedent. We need you, Huy, Amunhotep and I, not only to take up Egypt’s reins again but also to make a barrier between Tiye and the power she craves.” She indicated the scrolls on the desk. “This morning, after a long conversation with the King, I had the correspondence of the day brought to me. There it is. I’ve read it. Chief Architect Kha needs your advice on the west bank, at the site of the new palace. Hori and Suti need you to settle an argument between them regarding their work at Ipet-isut. They’re extremely talented, but foolishly they divided their responsibilities into the west side and the east side of Amun’s temple. Promotions are long overdue within the Semenu family. I think it would be wise to make Sobekhmose’s son Sobekhotep Overseer of the Treasury now that Sobekhmose is Overseer of the Works of Upper and Lower Egypt. You gave Sobekhmose the position yourself, Huy. Do you remember? Sobekhotep is eager to oversee the Treasury, having learned from his father, but first he asks that you allow him to travel to Rethennu and assess the potential of the turquoise mines we own there. I suggest that your nephew Amunhotep-Huy be given the task of planning and overseeing a new mortuary for the sacred Apis bulls. His competence in directing the repairs and additions to Ptah’s temple in Mennofer was exemplary. Give the Viziership to Aper-el. Oh, and you should give some thought to the building of more granaries—the crops continue to be more abundant than we have seen in several seasons. Shall I go on?”

“No, Majesty, and you’re right, I have been negligent in my duties and allowed personal concerns to come before my larger responsibilities.” The words were correct, but behind them was a flood of desperation. Mutemwia was eyeing him steadily, her chin resting on the forearms still folded loosely across her linen-swathed knees.

“The Empress must not become mer kat,” she said. “The weaknesses in my son’s character are becoming distressingly obvious. He cannot resist the requests of his women. Jewellery and other fripperies don’t matter—the careless granting of sincecures does. He and Tiye love each other, but Tiye is already becoming adept at manipulating his defects. Perhaps we should have abandoned plans for the marriage after the first vision, in which you saw her with the malformed King whom Anubis has now identified for us as her son.”

Huy’s shoulders hunched. “At the time, we spoke of the possibility of altering the future, changing fate. Atum had appeared to choose Tiye for Amunhotep.” He glanced at Paneb, but the scribe was writing calmly, head down over the papyrus.

“Had he?” Mutemwia uncurled. One by one her legs straightened, and she sat back, shook out the drape of her gown, tucked both bare feet under the chair, and crossed her arms. “What if Anubis was showing you what would happen if we designated Tiye as Queen, not what her future would be if we did not?”

“I forced the union,” Huy said slowly. “I elected to ignore the portion of the vision I didn’t like because I was full of the arrogance of my new power. I was eager to test it. A foreign commoner as Queen? Atum had sanctioned the bond, unlikely though it was. You were dismayed, but out of reverence for the god and trust in me you agreed to it.” His fingers met and clenched. “The result will be a disaster for Egypt’s future. With the birth of Prince Amunhotep the seed of that disaster was sown. It’s up to me to put everything right. Isfet must not be allowed to spread and enfeeble Ma’at because of me.”

Mutemwia pursed her lips. “A terrible word, Isfet. Whatever you do, you’re damned, aren’t you, my Huy? Your dilemma is perfectly clear to me. But of course you will not murder my grandson. Such ruthlessness is beyond your nature, no matter how fully the deed occupies your mind. Do you really think that the fate of the entire country will result from your conceit? That belief is unmitigated conceit itself.”

The hyena was staring at him. Huy could feel its unwavering regard as an unclean caress between his naked shoulder blades. “Majesty, I will tell you how I know that I am not tormented by conceit but accountability,” he said hoarsely, rising from the chair in one stiff movement and walking around it, his hands reaching for the support of its back. “I am being haunted. For some time I saw the animal only occasionally, but now it is with me night and day …” Recklessly, no longer caring how he sounded, he spoke of the three hyenas, one fleshly, one belonging in the Beautiful West, and now the third plaguing him, the words tumbling into the room. It was both a relief and an agony to rid himself of the burden he had carried for so long, and will continue to carry, he thought bleakly under the torrent of his voice. His gaze swept from door to desk to the dusky height of the painted ceiling and back again. He noted subconsciously that she had unfolded her arms and placed them along the polished arms of her chair. Lost in the painful vortex, he saw Paneb as if from a great distance, a man he did not recognize sitting on the black and white tiled floor and performing some inexplicable task. The frogs are a part of it too, his rational self said from the bottom of some inner well where sense and control had taken shelter. I must tell it all. He went on without volition, wanting to stop but unable to do so until he had purged himself and there was nothing left to say. His mouth seemed to close of its own accord. He stumbled, caught himself as Paneb reached across and pressed a palm against his outer thigh to balance him, and awkwardly sat down. His heart was pounding. The muscles of his legs were quaking.

At that moment there was a knock on the door. Huy tried and failed to call out, and it was Mutemwia who sharply replied. Paroi and a kitchen servant entered, and seeing the Queen, Paroi bowed as respectfully as he could with the loaded tray he was carrying. “There is hot garlic and chickpea soup and bread from this morning,” he said as he unloaded the contents of the tray onto the desk. “There are also slices of ox liver in dilled cabbage, dried figs, and as you can see, Master, the wine jar is unopened. Kenofer fetched the water in the jug himself. That’s why I have taken so long.” He cast a keen glance at Huy as he removed the wax plug from the neck of the wine jar and picked up the empty tray. The kitchen servant was placing a large bowl of water and a stack of folded linen cloths beside the dishes. Huy took one, dipped it in the water, and wiped his face and neck.

“Thank you, Paroi,” he said, trying to catch his breath. “Please make sure that the Commander is fed.” He dismissed Paroi before the under steward could ask the obvious question hovering on his tongue. The two servants backed down the room and the door closed behind them. Mutemwia slid upright and stood, folded back her sleeves, and, pouring a cup of wine, came around the desk and wrapped Huy’s hands around it, lifting it to his mouth. The gentle service was a singular honour. Her touch was warm and the wine refreshing. While he sipped, Mutemwia returned to her chair and, perching on its edge, began to spoon up the soup.

“It’s a long walk to your house from the palace,” she said. “I’m hungry, and I expect Wesersatet is also.” Huy waited, the thudding in his chest and the tremors in his legs gradually decreasing. Presently she looked across at him. “The bau of Anubis can be messengers or demons. You assume that the thing afflicting you is one of the Khatyu, but what if the hyena is Habyu instead, bringing you a message you need to understand? As for the frogs, to see them in a nightmare is very puzzling. They delight us because they represent resurrection, and we venerate them because they belong to the First Time, before Atum created the world. This is excellent soup.” Putting down her spoon, she dabbed her mouth with a piece of linen and surveyed the dish of liver and cabbage. “You know all this, Huy,” she went on. “You have been with Imhotep in the Beautiful West. You speak with Anubis every time you perform a Seeing. Ever since you were twelve years old, you have lived in two worlds, the present and the future, where time does not yet exist. You have forgotten your power and uniqueness, and fear and confusion rule you.” Selecting another spoon, she scooped up a quantity of liver and cabbage and ate it, chewing thoughtfully. “Why was Imhotep sitting reading under the blessed Ished Tree with a hyena tamed and docile beside him?” she wondered. “I can’t help you, my dear old friend, not in matters of the gods that are beyond my comprehension, and I suspect beyond the comprehension of any High Priest or even a Master of Mysteries. All I can do is support and encourage you in your temporal duties as mer kat. Are you feeling better? Good. Then finish your wine and let me eat this meal.”

Cradling his cup, Huy watched her delicate movements. Neither the spoon nor her mouth were ever too full. She allowed no sound, not even the clink of silver utensil against golden platter. She did not lean over the food. She used each linen napkin only once, and when she had finished, she dabbled her fingers in the bowl of water, glanced about for a moment and remembered that there was no servant to dry them, picked up the last spotless linen, dried them herself, and rose. “I must leave before Ra is born. I would prefer that neither Tiye nor Amunhotep learns of this visit. Amunhotep intends to summon you early. I have already told him that you will be sitting in audience instead of Tiye from now on. Incidentally, one of those scrolls contains a list of courtiers requiring a Seeing from you. Find your courage again, Great Seer. Let the contents of the Book of Thoth go back to gathering dust.”

It was the first time she had referred to the successful culmination of his lifelong search for the Book’s ultimate meaning. He understood that it was far less important to her than the continued stability and prosperity of her son and thus Egypt herself, and he wondered how she might regard the true purpose of the heb sed ceremonies. One day I’ll tell her, he promised. Catching up the dun-coloured cloak, he laid it across her arm. “I will make no attempt to harm Prince Amunhotep, Majesty,” he said reluctantly, “but you’re wrong if you believe me incapable of smothering him in his cot. He carries within him a disease that will one day render Ma’at and Egypt’s greatest divinities impotent. I will face the Judgment Hall leaving my greatest reparation undone. Therefore I beg you to beseech forgiveness for me from both Amun and Atum himself.”

A peculiar expression Huy could not decipher flitted across her exquisite little face. “The gods will not desert you, and you have nothing to fear from the Empress.” Rising on the tips of her toes, she put her hands to either side of his neck and kissed him directly on the mouth, enveloping him in a cloud of her perfume. Shock drove him to step back, and a full, generous smile lit up her face. “I am always available to assist you in your duties, mer kat,” she finished, walking to the door and rapping on it. “Come and tell me when you’ve solved the riddle of the hyena.” Her words seemed to shrink the enigma to the status of a minor conundrum, and she had closed the door behind her before he was able to complete his bow.

Kenofer was waiting for him as he walked into his bedchamber. The oil in his bedside lamp had been replenished, the debris of his hurried exit removed, and wordlessly Kenofer held out a vial of poppy. Huy drank it at once. Crawling onto his couch, he ordered Kenofer to raise the reed covering on the small window. There was no hint of dawn in the pressing darkness, but a puff of wind stirred the sheet Huy was holding and the flame inside the thin curves of the alabaster lamp fluttered briefly. The hyena was settling itself in the dense shadows beyond the range of light. Huy distinctly heard the scrabble of its claws against the tiling as it lowered its scrawny hindquarters onto the floor and immediately turned its black gaze to him. “Are you Khatyu or Habyu?” he murmured, feeling the opium enclose and ease the familiar nagging ache in his stomach and begin to soften his emotions. “Kenofer, I’ll be summoned to the palace early tomorrow. Or this morning,” he said drowsily. “You might as well set out one of my kilts of the twelfth grade and whatever jewellery will be appropriate before you go back to your pallet.” He did not hear Kenofer’s reply. He was already wandering beside the river, watching one frog after another emerge miraculously from the murky water and hop up onto the bank beside him. Under the influence of the drug there would be no nightmares.

It was not Kenofer who woke him but a dishevelled Amunmose, shaking him unceremoniously until he opened his eyes and batted the man’s arm away. “Chief Royal Herald Senu is here, Huy,” Amunmose said. “He was ordered to deliver an official summons to you at dawn. There’s a confirmation. The scroll is signed by the King himself.”

“I was expecting it.” Struggling to clear his mind, Huy left the couch. “How long have I slept?”

“Not long. Kenofer’s gone to heat your water in the bathhouse. I’ll send Senu away, get Rakhaka up to prepare you some food, then I’ll wash myself. Do you remember how difficult it used to be to persuade young Amunhotep to get off his couch in time for the noon meal? Not any more, apparently. I’m too old for any of this.” He paused at the door and turned. “There’s no trouble from the Empress already, is there, Huy? Is that why Her Majesty the Queen came to see you in the night? Should I be packing up the household for a flight into Rethennu or Zahi?”

“No, I don’t think so. I’ll take an escort, though. Please tell Perti.”

“He’s on his pallet outside the door. He’s awake.”

Mutemwia said that I have nothing to fear from Tiye, Huy’s thoughts ran on as the last vestiges of sleep blew away under Kenofer’s scrubbing. She’s very eager to see Tiye returned to an inferior place in Egypt’s day-to-day governmental affairs, and I understand why, but would she minimize the danger to me in her keenness to have me take up my duties as mer kat again? I’d have done so soon in any case. According to her, Tiye has shut herself up with her son and is screaming at everyone, but it’s only a matter of time before she calms down and appears in the audience hall again. Mutemwia wants me to return to the palace before the Empress’s rage is spent and she regains control of herself. Mutemwia adores her son. Does she fear that one day Tiye will have him assassinated and so wield the total authority of a Regent on behalf of the one Prince who is destined to survive? If so, it means that in spite of her sneers she believes my vision. Goddess as Regent, not as wife? Mutemwia knows what it’s like to be a Regent, the stresses and temptations of the position. She and I have been friends since the King was a baby. She is an extremely astute woman who sees the crevices in Amunhotep through which an ambitious wife might creep. But Tiye loves Amunhotep. Of that I have no doubt.

“Electrum or the purple gold, Master?” Kenofer asked, and Huy sighed and came to himself. The sun had risen fully by now but still hung low in the east, its first rays sending thin morning shadows snaking across Huy’s fields, and he knew that he must hurry. Dressed in a kilt woven of gold-wrapped linen threads, his face meticulously painted, his waist-length hair braided and entwined with thick gold bands each portraying the feather of Ma’at, and shod in leather sandals studded with golden ankhs, he was frowning at the display of jewellery laid out on his couch.

“I really don’t care,” he snapped, “but I suppose that, seeing I may be going straight to the audiences once the King has finished with me, it had better be the purple gold.” He held out his arms for the wide bracelets shot through with traces of purple and bent his head so that Kenofer could hang the linked double plumes of Amun on his chest. Purple gold was too expensive for any but the wealthiest Egyptians to own. The native craftsmen, brilliant though they were, had never been able to reproduce whatever composed the reddish tinge in the jewellery. Kenofer was handling it with reverence, but Huy’s eyes rested on the two rings he had not removed since Henenu the Rekhet, controller of demons, had made them for his protection. Perhaps they are what’s keeping the hyena at a distance—the Soul Protector and the Frog of Resurrection. Now why didn’t I remember that I wear the Frog on my finger, and wonder why it allowed the nightmares? Because the hyena is indeed Habyu, not Khatyu? Kenofer had finished setting the cascade of tiny scarabs into Huy’s earlobe and was holding up the copper mirror. Huy waved it away and left the room.

He and Paneb were carried to the palace in separate litters as before, Paneb with the scrolls the Queen had left tucked into his battered leather pouch. Perti and twenty of Huy’s soldiers surrounded them both, and Huy’s Chief Herald Ba-en-Ra strode in front to keep the way clear. There were not many people about to hear the herald’s warning. Huy kept his curtain closed against the early sun, his mind as much as possible on what Mutemwia had told him so that he might remain unruffled by any thought of the coming interview. If the King ordered his arrest, there would be nothing Perti and his men could do. Of course Perti knew it, but the sound of his cheerful voice as he chatted with one of his officers gave Huy a fragile sense of security.

At the entrance to the palace, Wesersatet and a contingent of royal guards were waiting. Wesersatet bowed as Huy left his litter. “Greetings, mer kat. You are expected. Please order your escort to wait. Refreshment will be provided for them.” His words and features were politely impersonal. Nothing in his manner betrayed the escapade of the night before. He strode towards the forest of pillars fronting the reception hall and at once the guards surrounded Huy and Paneb as they followed him. Huy did not need to be shown the way to the King’s apartments. Usually a guide would be summoned for a newcomer and the Commander-in-Chief would disappear to attend to other duties. It had been a long time since Huy had become lost in the maze of the palace, but today Wesersatet did not even slow his pace and the soldiers gave no sign of dispersing. The small groups of courtiers already drifting along the corridors quickly gave way as Wesersatet swept past them. A few recognized Huy between the sturdy bodies around him and bowed hesitantly. Huy knew what was in their minds, and in his also. Am I a prisoner or not?

At the wide double doors to the royal quarters, Nubti left his stool. He smiled and reverenced Huy, and Wesersatet and his men moved to either side of the passage, but they did not disband. Huy glanced at Paneb. The scribe’s demeanour was as imperturbable as ever. Nubti opened one of the doors, called Huy’s name, and waved the pair of them inside. The door closed behind them with an echo.

Amunhotep was still in his nightshirt, sitting slumped in a chair, his head covered with the white cap of strict custom. Both hands were resting in large bowls of water, one to either side of him on small tables. A servant was busily massaging one bare foot. The other, still bearing traces of henna, was stretched out on a stool. The King’s face was slightly swollen. Kohl was smeared across one temple, but his other eye was clean although bloodshot. To Huy he looked as though one of his eyes was missing. A man Huy had not seen before stood patiently off to one side, a large jug in his grasp. The air in the huge room was heavy with the scent of rosemary and a haze of myrrh smoke. Huy and Paneb went to the floor in a full prostration, and immediately Amunhotep grunted that they should get up. “Paneb, go over there and be quiet,” he said. “Uncle, you’re late. Come closer so that I don’t have to shout. My head is threatening to burst and every part of my body aches. I should not have left my couch, but before the festivities last night my Mother the Queen requested that I speak to you before the hour of audience this morning.”

Huy stepped up to him. “I’m sorry you’re ill, Majesty,” he offered.

Amunhotep grunted again. “I’m more hungover than ill,” he acknowledged surprisingly. “Nubti, get rid of everyone except Huy and Paneb, and send Nebmerut in. He should be hovering outside in the passage. And you, Neferronpet,” he snapped at the man Huy did not recognize, “what kind of a butler are you? The last thing I need is sweet date wine. Bring me sermet.” He turned back to Huy. “Nothing really helps but cold water on my wrists and myrrh smoke,” he said as the room promptly emptied. “Often sermet takes the headache away, but I don’t particularly like beer. Sometimes a massage to my feet makes magic. But not today.” He lifted his hands from the bowls of water. Huy picked up a linen towel and, wrapping the King’s hands, carefully dried each finger. Amunhotep watched him. “You’ve always loved me, haven’t you?” he said quietly after a while. “Ever since I spent the flood months with you and Anhur when I was a young boy. I love you too, and I trust you. In fact, I think that you and my Mother the Queen are the only two people I trust completely.”

There was a knock on the door that reverberated throughout the vast space and Nubti entered followed by a man Huy identified as Seal Bearer and Chief Royal Scribe Nebmerut. Without being told to do so, Nebmerut joined Paneb on the floor, greeted him, and set his palette across his thighs.

Amunhotep ignored the small disturbance. “I have no doubts at all that your gift is from Atum himself and your visions speak true,” he went on. “The things you saw in my little son’s future filled me with fear and despair. How does any Incarnation dare to repudiate the god who is his father, and moreover send masons to every temple and monument and stela in Egypt, and even beyond, to hack out his name and thus make it as though he never existed? I had a terrible fight with Tiye. She accused you of wanting the Horus Throne for yourself and your nephews. She called you a charlatan and vowed to have you arrested and imprisoned to starve until you were dead. Then she ran into the nursery.”

Another knock on the door boomed. Amunhotep winced in pain. Butler Neferronpet advanced with a clay jug and a silver cup. Pouring a draft and bowing, he passed it to Amunhotep, who drank thirstily. Huy took the jug, set it on one of the tables, and curtly dismissed Neferronpet. After a swift glance at the King, the man went away. Huy dropped the linen he had been absently holding into the water and sat back on the stool.

“I went to talk to my Mother the Queen and then I drank all night,” the King continued. “I wanted oblivion, Huy. I cannot kill my little son, but neither can I pretend that I did not hear the prediction. To imagine Tiye actually marrying our Prince goes far beyond the borders of sanity, let alone the edicts of Ma’at, but your voice followed me into one jug of wine after another. I couldn’t escape it. If Ma’at is wounded, Egypt will be unprotected from drought and famine and disease and—who knows?—maybe even from invasion and military defeat.” He pressed the tip of a finger against his right eye, where he was obviously in pain. “Therefore I have given the one command open to me,” he said miserably. “Prince Amunhotep is now confined to the harem. He may not leave its precinct for any reason at all. Ever. Chief Harem Steward Userhet and his successors will answer with their lives if he goes free. My royal seal is on the injunction and the grounds for it. I have also ordered that Tiye be removed from the harem and only allowed to visit the Prince with my permission. It has all been so hard and so horrible, Uncle. Have I done the right thing?”

Huy longed to take him in his arms, to cuddle and rock him as he used to do when Amunhotep was young. Instead, he gathered the King’s hands into his own once more. “You did the right thing, the only thing possible without breaking a law of Ma’at,” he said quietly. “You were wise. Tiye will eventually accept your decision. I’ll return to my duties as your mer kat at once if you are agreeable. And Amunhotep, never doubt that you may trust me with your life.” Huy felt his fingers squeezed and then released. Amunhotep nodded.

“The ministers and ambassadors and boon-seekers in the audience hall will be restless,” he said. “Get on with it, Uncle, and tell Nubti on your way out that I’m hungry now. You can bring anything that needs my seal to my quarters this evening.”

“Were you able to hear everything, Paneb?” Huy asked once the heavy doors were closed behind them and they were hurrying along the corridor.

Paneb nodded. “Every word, Master,” he replied. “May I suggest that you obtain the royal seal on the papyrus?”

You are no fool, my dear scribe. This time I definitely need insurance against whatever vagaries might be in my own future. He swept into the audience hall and took the empty seat on the dais, looking down at the sea of bowed heads. “Mahu, who should be dealt with first?” he said.

The Mitanni ambassador presented a long letter full of wordy praise from his King to Amunhotep, but as always, Huy thought as he listened to the seemingly endless phrases extolling Amunhotep’s virtues, Mitanni wanted gold and plenty of it. Surprisingly, this time the King of Mitanni was offering a few horses and chariots in exchange. Huy cut the recitation short and referred the matter to the Overseer of Foreign Affairs. Merimose, Viceroy of Kush and Wawat and also the Overseer of the Gold Lands of Amun, sent his humble greetings to Amunhotep and a request for more soldiers to protect the gold routes. That letter required an investigation by the Chancellor together with Wesersatet as Commander-in-Chief. Huy would be required to approve any decision.

Once the hall had emptied, Huy and Mahu began their tour of the administrators. Mahu remained silent. Only Nebmerut, Royal Scribe and Seal Bearer, was his superior. Huy had always enjoyed working with Mahu. Like Paneb, he knew how to keep his thoughts to himself unless his opinion was required, in which case his replies were succinct and to the point. His load was heavy, noting down the details of each day’s discussions and decisions and making copies of every encounter for the palace archives, but he did not complain. Today Huy was reflecting on his meeting with the King as he and Mahu approached the large office shared by Hori and Suti, Architect Kha’s undoubtedly accomplished twin sons. Huy did not expect them to be present; architects and stonemasons did much of their outdoor work in the cool early hours of the morning. But one of their assistants and probably a couple of scribes would be busy inside, and Huy simply wanted to make sure that the two young men would be there to speak with him the following day.

Amunhotep has made it plain that he doesn’t doubt my visions, Huy mused as he and Mahu paced easily along the paved path fronting the row of administrative cells to their left. On their right a well-watered lawn ended in a section of the towering wall that encircled the palace precincts. The sun had not yet reached its zenith. Huy’s shadow, though truncated, lay on the grass beside him. Deliberately he refused to glance at it, knowing that the hyena was there in its shade, keeping pace with him. Grimly he forced his mind away from it. Mutemwia often used to tell Amunhotep the story of what I Saw the first time I inadvertently touched him, when no route to the Horus Throne seemed possible. He surely knows it all by heart. But I have no such history with Tiye. I Saw for her first when she was already a girl on the verge of womanhood, and I lied by omission when I recounted it to her. Now she’s read all of it. I’ve given her good reason to mistrust me, and like any mother her instinct is to shield her son from harm no matter what. Coupled with an excuse to label me a sham, she will want me as far away from the Prince as possible. Given the power she wields as Empress, and her undoubted fury at her husband but most especially at me, she will look for a way to see me dead and Amunhotep’s edict rescinded. No matter what Mutemwia said, I’ll make sure that my estate and all of us in it are protected. Will Atum help me, even though I’ve fulfilled my agreement to decipher the meaning of the Book and my only use to him now is as a Seer? Will Anubis? He could hear the hyena panting, and in a spasm of disgust he swung round and aimed a kick at it, aware even as his foot shot out that the action was futile.

“Master?” Mahu said.

Huy exhaled noisily. “It’s nothing. I thought I saw a scorpion,” he replied. “Let’s finish our business quickly. I’m hungry.”

They had arrived at the open cell door. Huy could hear a casual conversation going on inside. The interior was pleasantly dim. Two men were bending over a scroll that had been unrolled and spread out across the surface of a wide table. As Mahu stood aside to let Huy enter first, they bowed courteously.

“Let us call light First—but it is known only through darkness,” one of the men said, and all at once Huy could not see his face. The room was much more murky than it had appeared to be. He turned, but there was no door behind him, no sun-drenched grass, no sliver of intensely blue sky.

“Mahu?” he called, and at the sound of his voice utter blackness suddenly descended. It was so thick that Huy experienced it as a suffocating weight, and for one panic-stricken moment he could not breathe.

“The ponderous inevitability of consequence,” another voice intoned. In spite of his disorientation Huy heard something in its quality that he recognized. It woke faint echoes in him from long ago. A High Priest? Of Ra or Thoth’s temple? What had it meant? He couldn’t remember.

“Anubis, are you here?” he whispered, his words muffled by the impenetrable gloom that seemed to have bulk as well as depth. “Have you come to lead me into the Judgment Hall?”

There was no reply. Instead the first voice shouted, “Only through darkness, darkness, darkness! The Light cast a shadow, grim and terrible, like restless water with spume like smoke! Peril in the water and menace in the smoke!” It began to wail.

Huy broke out in a cold sweat. The sound was unearthly, a series of chilling howls without a hint of human breath, but he remembered where he had seen those words. He had gone to Thoth’s temple at Iunu to read the second part of the Book of Thoth. Anhur and a young Amunmose had gone with him. Amunmose had used the time to visit his family. Huy, intimidated by everything and everyone at Thoth’s home, continuously aware of the god’s strong magic, had clung to Anhur and forged a bond with the soldier that had only been broken by Anhur’s death. The portion of the Book he had been expected to untangle had made no sense to him at all, not until he and Thoth’s High Priest had begun to talk of frogs. He began to repeat the mysterious stanza aloud. The whole of the Book was there, lodged faultlessly in his mind. “I am One that transforms into Two. I am Two that transforms into Four. I am Four that transforms into Eight. After this I am One.”

Immediately the moaning stopped and Huy’s recitation was taken up and repeated by a chorus that slowly grew from several guttural voices to the deafening clamour of a multitude. Huy covered his ears. Still he could see nothing. Then his right hand was pulled roughly away from his head, forced to grip what felt like a portion of a metal rod, and he found himself towed backward. He struggled to keep his balance. His other hand slid along a wall, caught against the edge of a door jamb, and without warning he was outside. The cacophony ceased. The silence made his head ring. He realized that he was clutching a tall golden Staff of Office halfway down its length. It was topped with the face of a jackal, and Anubis was holding it just under the talisman. Hastily Huy let it go and looked about.

He was standing on the grass opposite Hori and Suti’s cell, but the door was closed. So was every other door along the block of administrative offices. Nothing stirred. No insect moved in the grey lawn. No wind lifted the hem of Huy’s kilt. No bird troubled the leaden grey sky. The lack of sound was absolute, and everything Huy’s eyes rested upon was the colour of death except his own shadow. Pitch-black, it snaked across the lawn, crawled up the side of the grey wall, and continued to climb into the sky until Huy had to crane his neck to see the enormous, misshapen head. He did not look at it for long. Not far from his feet the hyena squatted, inky dark within the blurred outline of the shadow. It was not staring at him. Its attention was fixed on Anubis.

“What did Mighty Atum do when he saw his shadow, Great Seer?” Anubis said harshly. “I am ashamed to be here, asking this question, and you should be ashamed to be standing in the place of No-Time without an answer.” His lips lifted in scorn. “How often have I warned you to look to your house? How many words of caution have I wasted on such a pathetically weak ka as yours?” Stepping close to Huy, he snarled, his wet white teeth bared. His skin gleamed. The golden ankh resting on his black chest glittered. The pleats of his golden kilt swung shimmering against the perfect musculature of his legs as he moved. He was the only vibrant, living thing in all that tomblike drabness, and Huy, glancing down at himself, saw his own dusty greyness. “Tell me,” Anubis growled, “what does a triad represent?”

“It represents eternal and unchanging truths.”

“And what of a doubling?” Huy watched the long furred nose, the pink tongue, those lethal jaws, form the words. The god’s breath was warm and smelled of the sacred kyphi perfume reserved for temple rites.

“A doubling is all fleeting, earthly wisdom.”

“Tell me, then, what is the heb sed?”

Huy stared at him. Anubis waited, black eyes half closed, majestic ears stiffly raised. “I have discovered, Most Dread God of the Judgment Hall, that the heb sed takes the King and transcends his doubling. He becomes eternal, infinite. He enters the mathematical certainty of the triad. His nature is changed. Thus the heb sed is the mathematics of eternity.”

“You have discovered this, and yet you do not remember what Mighty Atum did when he became Light and saw his shadow? Frogs, Son of Hapu. Frogs. Look!”

He stretched out his Staff over Huy’s distorted shadow and to Huy’s horror the hyena crouching within it began to grow. It swelled, lengthened, began to fill the contours of the shadow, until the shape of the head high against the slate-grey sky was not Huy’s anymore but a huge, grotesque thing of tuft and snout. Within the darkness flowing across the grass from Huy’s feet there was movement, seething on the wall, churning into the sky, and with it came a stench Huy recalled. It was not the whiff of a wild animal. It was putrefaction, rotting flesh, but that was only half the odour emanating from the Ished Tree in Ra’s temple, Huy thought with a jolt of recognition. Honey and garlic and orchard blossoms as well … The creatures trapped inside his shadow were struggling towards him. Frogs. With a shriek he stumbled backward, but his shadow went with him, attached to him, part of him, and so did the frogs.

“Stop it, Anubis! Please stop it!” he begged.

The god shrugged his broad shoulders. “Stop it? How can I? You and your shadow are one, foolish Seer, even as Atum’s shadow belonged to him.”

“But Atum saw the chaos within his shadow and calmed it! He commanded the harmony of pairs, two, four, eight, male and female, frogs, Anubis, oh yes, of course! Frogs! I remember all of it now! Water, endless space, darkness, and what is hidden, and so the cosmos was conceived, before creation could take place. But I’m not a god! I can’t command concord inside my shadow!”

“So you recollect the meaning of the second scroll at last.” Anubis’s grating tone was caustic. “All these years Atum has waited, Thoth has waited, I have waited, for you to understand. No human being is able to bring order into his darkness. He may try. He may succeed for a little while. But his shadow will always shelter a hyena.” With a flick of one beringed finger, the frogs vanished and Huy’s shadow returned to an ordinary size. The hyena had also disappeared. “It’s still there,” Anubis said. “It has been there all your life. You were no more than thirteen when you read the substance of the second Book and you and Thoth’s High Priest unravelled its meaning together. Why did you forget it so soon?”

Huy shook his head. Excuses flashed through his mind—I was very young, I was uneasy in Thoth’s temple, I didn’t concentrate on the task because I was aware all the time of Sennefer’s presence in the temple’s school—but they would be unacceptable to the jackal god who had taunted and goaded him for years. It came to him that perhaps Anubis had been instructed purposely to provoke him, to force a return to obedience when the path of rebellion beckoned.

Anubis sighed, an exaggerated gush of scented breath. “Fear, proud Huy,” he said, his animal throat making the word an inadvertent growl. “Fear that the future you saw in your visions was flawed. Fear that the wounds and diseases you treated under my instructions would eventually be transferred elsewhere. And you saw it happen, didn’t you? Not often, but often enough to trouble your sleep. Were you forced to think of yourself as infallible so that blame could be placed somewhere else? I am infallible, human, but you are not. The answer was deep within your ka, but you refused to face it for fear that you would have to admit your shortcoming to those who sought your help.” Rapidly he passed his tongue over the soft fur of his lips. “The insurmountable disorder in your shadow, the insurmountable disorder in the shadows of those for whom you Scryed, warped the truths that Atum gave you through me. Not always, and usually insignificantly, but often enough to cause you, and them, distress.” To Huy’s alarm, Anubis leaned forward and, putting an arm around Huy’s neck, licked his cheek. The god’s nose was damp and cool. “You carry needless guilt, dear human,” he purred. “Only the merest fraction of responsibility for Egypt’s destiny lies with you. The King has behaved correctly, and Ma’at is pleased. She sees into your heart also. Get about your business, mer kat. Govern this blessed country and Scry for its people.”

He stood away and, taking his Staff in both black hands, spoke in a language Huy did not know. At once the heavy rings on his fingers sparkled in new sunlight, the grass flushed green, and a flock of birds piped as they flew by. Beyond the open cell door two men looked up, saw him, and bowed. Beside him Mahu waited politely. Huy glanced about. Anubis had gone, but a faint trace of kyphi perfume lingered in the warm air. Huy nodded at Mahu, smiled, drew a deep breath, and stepped past him into the office.