Having landed safely at the Quayside of the Dead with its brooding, ill-carved statue of the green-skinned Osiris, I made my way across the Place of Scavengers and into the warren of streets in the lower part of the City of the Dead. It was a sombre place, suitable only for those who wished to shelter from the law and needed the darkness to cloak their activities. Sailors and marines staggered about, beer jugs in hand. Ladies from a House of Delight drifted through them trying to entice them in a cloud of cheap perfume, clattering jewellery and sloe-eyed glances, their rouged mouths in a permanent pout. Elsewhere, beggars, scorpion men, confidence tricksters, Rhinoceri, outlaws from the Red Lands, the grotesque and the crippled rubbed shoulders with grey-robed Desert Wanderers.
The lanes and streets were arrow-thin funnels lit by the occasional blaze from an oil lamp or the dancing fire of a cresset torch. The air was bittersweet with the stench of corruption from the cheap embalmers’ shops where the corpses of the poor were over-dried in baths of natron, hung on hooks to dry, pickled, stuffed with dirty rags, then doused in cheap perfumed oil before being handed back to their relatives. Casketmakers, shabti-sellers and coffin-polishers touted for business. Women of every nation, skimpily dressed or clothed mysteriously in hoods and robes, offered their bodies for sale. Tale-tellers and minstrels offered their wares, while professional travellers shouted how they had stories for sale about a land of frozen whiteness, yellow-skinned men who lived in palaces or roaming hordes of barbarians who killed and plundered and drank from the skulls of their enemies. A sideshow in front of a shop, covered with a patched tapestry of faded animal skins, offered a chance to view a Syrian ‘strong as a ram, pleasure three women at once’. Another show invited the curious to view a woman with three breasts, a dwarf with two heads or a bird which could talk like a man. Soothsayers and fortune-tellers vied with dancing troupes to catch my attention. A gang of pimps shrieked at a group of white-garbed priests, dancing madly in the name of their foreign god, to leave them and their customers alone. Stalls and shops spilled out rubbish. Bakers and meat-sellers offered platters of freshly cooked lamb, beef, goose and fish, grilled above spluttering charcoal and spiced hot to the tongue to satisfy any taste as well as to hide any putrefaction. Such a mêlée made it impossible to see if I was being followed. I felt uneasy because I was left alone, as if protected by some invisible presence, yet I could see nothing, except for a shaggy-headed dwarf, dressed in a striped robe, who always seemed to be either beside me or in front.
I reached the Sign of the Ankh, a pleasure-house and beer-shop which catered for the casket-, coffin-and basketmakers. On that particular evening it was deserted inside, although its small courtyard was full of bully-boys in their leather kilts, baldrics and thick marching sandals, lounging round a cracked fountain. They looked up as I entered but no one rose to challenge me. The entrance to the shop was also guarded. Inside, the low-ceilinged room, reeking of sawdust and burned oil, was brightly lit. A row of barrels and baskets were stacked at one end. Sobeck sat on a pile of cushions under a shuttered window. Others of his gang stood or squatted, deliberately shrouded by the shifting shadows. Sobeck smiled as I entered, put down the puppy he was playing with and rose to greet me. His eyes, however, were still on the door.
‘You did well, my friend,’ he said, then called: ‘Was he followed?’
The dwarf replied in a guttural tongue I could not understand.
‘Apparently you were,’ Sobeck clasped my hand, ‘but we lost him.’ He sat down and gestured at the cushions piled at the base of a wooden column. I took the dagger from my sash and squatted down. A jar of beer was thrust into my hand. Sobeck cleared the platters from the small table which separated us. The puppy, unsteady on its legs, stumbled over, licked my knee, sniffed at the basket and curled up beside me. Sobeck raised his goblet in a toast. I replied but didn’t sip.
‘It’s not poisoned,’ Sobeck laughed.
He picked up my cup, took a generous sip and handed it back. He looked better than the last time; his face was not so lean, though fresh scars marked his cheeks and upper right arm. His kilt was of good quality, as was the shawl which draped his shoulders and the sandals on his feet. Rings and bracelets glittered on his fingers, wrists and arms flashed like fire. His head and face were cleanly shaved, gleaming with oil; his eyes were the same, like those of a hungry hunting cat. He kept his dagger close by.
‘You are well, Mahu, Chief of Police?’
‘I am not Ch—’
‘You soon will be. I heard your aunt laughing about it, that’s how I know.’
‘The night you visited her?’
Sobeck grinned behind his hand. He ordered dishes of catfish with plump, fresh lettuce and slices of lush pomegranate. A beggar girl served us. Sobeck took the dishes and divided the food between us.
‘Well?’ He chewed noisily. ‘What do you want?’
I finished my food, opened the basket and took out the sealed alabaster jar full of flies buzzing over a lump of honey. I placed it on the table before him. Sobeck stopped chewing. ‘Is this a gift?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘For killing your aunt?’ Sobeck pulled a face. ‘It was easy enough. She was arrogant, and thought the soldiers camped in the gardens outside her house would be protection enough. She apparently liked to be alone. Anyway, her neck snapped like a twig. Now you bring me a jar of honey and some buzzing flies?’
I opened my wallet and placed three precious stones on the table.
‘I want you to take the jar of flies to the embalmers and ask them to place it next to the head of Isithia’s corpse. She never could stand flies.’
Sobeck smiled. ‘And? There are three stones here.’
‘You are to bribe the embalmers to remove her heart and its protective scarab before they wrap the corpse in its bandages. I want my aunt’s soul to wander the Underworld.’
‘I didn’t think you believed in it?’
‘I am a calculating man, Sobeck. Just in case.’
Sobeck tapped the third diamond. ‘And?’
‘Isithia’s house will be deserted. I want it burned to the ground, it and everything in it – but do not harm the willow tree in the orchard beyond.’
‘A fire?’ Sobeck glanced up at the ceiling. ‘That will take oil, not to mention desperate men.’
I placed a fourth diamond on the table.
Sobeck swept it up in his hand. ‘You must have hated her.’
‘She made me what I am.’
‘And what are you, Mahu?’
‘As the tree is planted, so it grows.’
‘So what do you want?’ Sobeck’s voice was barely above a whisper. ‘What do you really want, Mahu, friend of princes, confidant and counsellor, soon to be Chief of Police?’
For a moment he looked like the boy I used to play with in the Kap, running wild through the trees or hiding from Weni. I felt tearful but the tears didn’t come. ‘What about this Chief of Police thing?’ I asked.
‘Your aunt told me as I came up the steps. She thought I was her manservant. She kept repeating it as if savouring a joke. “My little Mahu,” she laughed. “The ugly Baboon, Chief of Police. Well, I never!”’
‘How did she know?’
‘I never stopped to ask. In fact, it was only afterwards I reflected on what she had said.’
‘You saw no letter on the table, no documents?’
‘I was there to exact my revenge, not to steal things. I’ll do that before I burn the house down.’ Sobeck pushed a piece of fish into his mouth. His eyes were no longer so hard. ‘Oh, you’ll become Chief of Police, Mahu, don’t worry about that. We are in the time of waiting, aren’t we? The old Pharaoh is dying and the Grotesque waits like a cat hiding in the bushes ready to pounce: he and his two red-haired relatives, the Akhmin gang. They are already making their presence felt.’ He leaned over and filled my cup. ‘It’s our business, Mahu, to watch things: to keep our ear close to the door and listen to the rumours and whispers. Who has been sent here? Who has been sent there? Which officer is in charge of that district? Why are certain regiments despatched upriver, and others brought closer to the city? Why is Ay so insistent on hiring mercenaries?’ He caught my surprise and smiled. ‘Oh yes, he’s supposed to be strengthening the garrison of Akhmin: the numbers have grown so large you’d think the Hyksos had returned. Sooner or later, perhaps sooner than later, Ay will appoint a certain General,’ he waved his hand, ‘the next Mayor of Thebes.’
‘And the new post?’ I added. ‘Chief of Police?’
‘That’s my clever Baboon, Mahu! Ay can’t do it all in one sweep. It’s like drawing a picture: a brush-stroke here, a brush-stroke there, not yet completed, not even formed, but the artist knows what he intends. So, Mahu, Baboon of the South, my question still stands. What do you really want? Is it power? Do you like being close to Ay and his gang?’
‘I want to be part of something,’ I replied, ‘to please and be pleased.’
‘To love and be loved?’
‘Sobeck, sarcasm doesn’t suit you.’
‘But the Princess Nefertiti does you. Is that the real reason, Mahu? Is that why you love the palace?’
‘Why are you
here
?’ I retorted brusquely.
‘I’ll come to that by and by. Do you know,’ Sobeck picked up the dagger and moved it from hand to hand, ‘I really do like you, Mahu, more than anyone. I’ll never forget I owe you my life. If you hadn’t sent me that message, I would have sent you one. When you are Chief of Police, you and I can do business together.’
‘You already seem to have a lot of partners.’ I gazed around at the men half-concealed in the shadows. ‘Business partners?’ I queried. ‘Where is the Ape?’
Sobeck shouted into the darkness for a basket to be brought. It was dirty and stained with blood which had seeped through the meshes. The little puppy beside me stirred so I stroked it gently. Sobeck placed the gruesome basket on the table, took off the lid and drew out the severed head with its half-closed eyes, jutting mouth and jaw, the neck of fraying black flesh. He placed it gently back. ‘The Ape or what’s left of him. He tried to betray me. You’ve heard of the Hyenas, Mahu?’
Of course I had. The Hyenas were the violent gangs who swarmed through the slums of Thebes and the squalid streets of the Necropolis. Sobeck ordered the basket to be taken away and traced the scar on his face.
‘I also owe you for the treasure you sent me. It has helped me to make a few adjustments to my life.’
‘You control the gangs?’ I asked.
‘Almost,’ he replied. ‘But by next year I will be able to say yes. I learned a lot at that prison oasis, even more on the journey back. Pharaoh has order in his kingdom, I shall have order in mine. The tomb-robbers, the pimps, the smugglers, the traders in flesh, the scorpion men, the unemployed, the mercenaries and discharged soldiers will all know their places in my little world, and if they don’t – well, they don’t deserve to be here. I’ll have my House of Silver and my troops. Whatever you ask, Mahu, from my kingdom you shall have.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘As simple as that.’
‘But you couldn’t find the man who followed me?’ I taunted.
‘No.’ Sobeck smiled thinly. ‘We still make mistakes, Mahu. It’s just like being in the House of Instruction. Learning doesn’t come like a meal on a platter. So,’ he lifted his cup again, ‘let’s toast the past and the future.’
‘Have you met Maya?’ I asked.
Sobeck shook his head. ‘He’s the only one I leave alone. I don’t know why, but one day I will renew my acquaintance. He doesn’t know I am alive.’
I didn’t answer.
‘I know all about the rest. Pentju’s in love, you know – a lady called Tenbra. He’s infatuated with her, they will be married within the year. I hope she keeps him away from the House of Delight here in the Necropolis, otherwise he will need all his medical skill to cure the ailments he’ll catch.’
‘And Horemheb and Rameses?’
‘Ah, two cheeks of the same arse! Two dirty nostrils in the same nose. My prize bully-boys. Horemheb is a puritan. He looks at a woman and immediately thinks of breeding rather than pleasure. Rameses is the one I watch. Venomous as a viper – he likes inflicting pain. Oh yes, he’s a visitor here, well-known in the House of Delight for his use of the whip, the stick and other petty cruelties. I often wonder if his old friend Horemheb knows about his private pastimes.’ Sobeck straightened his shoulders and stuck his chest out, such a clever imitation of Horemheb that I laughed.
‘Horemheb wants to be a great General, the new Ahmose.’ Sobeck breathed in. ‘He’s of peasant stock from the Delta, born of a young girl who caught the Magnificent One’s eye.’
‘He’s the Divine One’s son?’
‘Might be. Or of one of his courtiers. The Divine One,’ Sobeck’s face turned ugly, ‘could be generous with his Royal Ornaments, only that he had to give, you never took, as I found to my cost. Does he still drink the juice of the poppy?’ Sobeck scratched at his chin.
‘They say,’ he continued, chatting quickly to show off his knowledge, ‘the Magnificent One is more interested in his eldest daughter Sitamun than he is in his wife. But, one day soon, he will die. They will bury him out in that great mausoleum he has built, guarded by those Colossi of red quartzite.’ He leaned across the table. ‘Now that’s one tomb, Mahu, I intend to visit.’