The King's Man (50 page)

Huy shook his head. “I need the original hieroglyphs. Mistakes can creep in by accident and the concepts conveyed be misinterpreted.”

Penbui smiled briefly. “Of course. If I were in your place, I’d make the same decision. May Thoth guide your thoughts as you read, mer kat, and I thank you for the many pleasures of this day.”

With an inward sigh of relief, Huy turned towards the now dark passage that would return him to his apartment.

He had thought that once the door closed behind him he would be keen to acquaint himself with the rituals concealed within the box, but examining his inner self he found that his curiosity had temporarily subsided, replaced by thirst and an awakening need for poppy. Laying his precious burden on the bedside table, he beckoned a waiting Kenofer. “Undress me. I’m too tired to bother with the bathhouse this evening, but bring hot water and wash me here. Bring a jug of water and a dose of poppy.”

When the servant’s tasks were complete, Huy dismissed him and composed himself for sleep. The opium, obedient as ever, coursed slowly and langorously through his veins. The lamp by his couch cast warm shadows that merged with the heavier darkness beyond the flame’s reach. Yet Huy did not fall asleep for a long time. He was not anxious or troubled. Relaxed in body, he had no particular thoughts as the events of the day passed slowly and peacefully through his mind. Even the sense of supreme accomplishment he had expected to feel after a lifetime of pondering the enigmas of the Book was absent. It was as though the joys and griefs of the past and the hidden life of the future did not exist. There was only a calm present, and Huy was profoundly grateful.

He and Paneb spent the whole of the following day dealing with a welter of letters from the officials and administrators he had left behind in Weset. Many of them contained additional comments in a hand Huy recognized as that of the Empress’s Chief Scribe. “I approved this, but I don’t want you coming back and countermanding my decision, so confirm it,” was one such waspish remark. “I’m told that you worked on these negotiations for half a year, but I don’t like the concessions you have agreed to make,” was another, longer harangue.

The ambassador insists that by your own word Egypt promises to provide not only the protection of his border with our troops but also supplies for the creation of three thousand compound bows and the artisans necessary to instruct the foreigners in their construction. I do not approve of arming those who may one day turn against us. Is he or is he not taking advantage of your absence to extract more from us than you promised to his King? Nothing of this matter has yet been put to papyrus, an omission that I find entirely frustrating. If you do not return to Weset soon, I intend to begin the negotiations over again from the start and more realistically, unless you can give me good reasons for the offer you presented. When will you come back? In my opinion you have left me with several administrative problems that are unnecessarily complicated.

Huy answered every query as tactfully as he could without surrendering any of his authority. There was no message from the King.

By sunset, he and Paneb had dealt with the last of the correspondence and Paneb had given Chief Herald Ba-en-Ra a full bag for delivery to the palace at Weset. Ba-en-Ra would hand it to one of the heralds under him. Once Huy had read the scroll regarding the rites of the heb sed and had dictated his own account of its contents to Paneb, he would be free to leave Mennofer, but he was in no hurry to acquaint Their Majesties with the details of his vision regarding the newly born Prince and perhaps be forced to confront them with a solution they would not like.
I’ll go north to Iunu, spend time with Thothmes and Nasha, perhaps even go farther and watch the final work being done on Khenti-kheti’s temple at Hut-herib. I thank the gods that I’m answerable to Amunhotep and not to Tiye!

He ate the evening meal in his bedchamber with very little appetite, a tray across his thighs, his attention now fixed on the cedar box, and when he had eaten and drunk what he could he sent once again for Paneb, had Kenofer bring more lamps, and was finally ready to see what the ancient and anonymous author of the heb sed festival had created.

He saw at once that the papyrus was very brittle. Tiny pieces of its edges had broken off and lay on the bottom of the cedar box, and he would have to unroll the thick scroll on a firm surface. Reluctantly he carried it to the room that had been set aside for his office. He had not used that area since his arrival in the palace. It represented the affairs of government from which he had managed partially to withdraw, and he approached it unwillingly, Paneb following. Kenofer brought the lamps, setting two of them on the desk and one on the floor to illuminate Paneb’s work before closing the door behind him. Gingerly Huy began to open out the scroll.

The hieroglyphs were in a hand he did not recognize. Tiny and neat, they flowed pleasantly under Huy’s gaze, unfolding in a version of dialect less ancient than that of the Book, Huy surmised, and easier to read. “An account of the ceremonies and secret rites composing the sacred progression of the heb sed festival whereby the land is rejuvenated and the King’s transmutation affirmed,” the opening sentence proclaimed. “It is Thoth who gives the words. It is Wepwawet who ensures the correct performance of every ritual. Thus may His Majesty’s mouth be opened to eternity.”

Wepwawet
, Huy repeated to himself.
A lesser wolf god with a shrine in the town of Aswat. If I remember my lessons correctly, he bears two titles: Lord of War and Opener of the Ways. He stands in the celestial barque with other gods as they convey the King through the Duat and do battle with Apep the serpent and the demons of the dark. We think of him as opening a way in the night, but what if he does a great deal more? He is one of the earliest of our deities, the origin of his powers lost in the past. What if he presides over the heb sed because without him the King’s transformation into a god could not take place? Rejuvenation of King and land, yes, but what if Wepwawet in his guise as Opener of the Ways is the only one commanded to form a path along which Atum’s transforming magic may travel?
Putting aside conjectures that were futile at present, Huy returned his attention to the scroll.

There were seven solemn rites making up the days of the festival, and as the details of each one unfolded, Huy sank more deeply into the anonymous scribe’s descriptions. Every stage of the King’s progress towards rebirth had been set out with a clarity and precision that enabled Huy not only to understand and visualize each phase but also to link it directly to passages from the Book of Thoth. One such segment that had always puzzled Huy, coming as it did at the end of what he used to believe was the last portion of the Book, said, “… he has gone around the entire two skies, he has circumnambulated the two banks …” Now it was set firmly into the third stage, when the King lies curled in a small chamber especially erected to be both a tomb and a womb from which he will be reborn. The tiles decorating the space are blue-green. The King is wrapped in a cow’s skin representing the womb of the sky goddess Nut, who swallows Ra every evening and expels him each morning. An Opener of the Mouth, a funerary priest, enfolds the King and watches as he crawls into the place where he symbolically dies and from which he will emerge transmuted. Inside the tomb two paired glyphs are depicted representing both halves of the sky, east and west, and both banks that make up Egypt herself on either side of the river.
The same passage from the Book goes on to speak of the resurrected King’s triumphant flight once his assimilation with Horus is complete
, Huy realized.
The King is reborn. He has died, and now he emerges from the womb of Nut as Horus himself. The waiting funerary priest performs the Opening of the Mouth ceremony with the Pesesh-kef knife, giving new senses to the young Horus. The King then suckles, eats, and teethes as spells are said to render those activities authentic, but he is still both living and dead until the assembled officials privileged to attend his emergence from the tomb—the priests, sem priests, magicians, and archivists from Ptah’s House of Life—shout, “Awake! Awake! Awake!”

There was more, much more. Some of the rites had to do with a rejuvenation of Egypt herself as the King was reborn, but to Huy, utterly engrossed in the ancient text, the ones carried out in strict privacy were plainly intended to metamorphose a mortal King into an immortal god. Wepwawet, Opener of the Ways, presided over it all from the first solemn procession to the raising of a djed column and the unveiling of new statues of the King scattered throughout Egypt, announcing a renewal of both the ruler and the land.

As the scroll rolled up, Huy finally came to himself. Paneb still sat cross-legged on the floor beside the desk, but his chin rested on his breast. He was asleep. The alabaster lamps were burning brightly. Someone had refilled their oil without Huy’s being aware of it. He leaned back, all at once conscious of an ache at the base of his spine, stiff shoulders, and a difficulty in focusing as he scanned the room. The apartment lay resting in a deep silence Huy was loath to disturb, but reaching down, he touched Paneb. Immediately the scribe was awake. “Go to bed,” Huy told him. “Tomorrow I’ll dictate my thoughts on this matter. Kenofer will be snoring outside the door. Send him in to me as you go.”

15

THE FOLLOWING MORNING,
Huy set Paneb the task of copying the heb sed scroll and ordered Amunmose to have his belongings packed. He sent a herald north with a warning to Thothmes to expect his arrival in three days’ time, and one to the King explaining his actions. All that day, while his scribe laboured over the ancient text and a harried Amunmose shouted imprecations at the servants creating chaos out of what had been a very fragile order, Huy sat in a corner of the shady garden and attempted to lay out in his mind everything he had learned. The Book of Thoth made sense to him at last, and coupled with the grave procedures of the heb sed festival, the will of Atum-Ra was finally revealed, not as a pious hope carried down through the ages and taken for granted by every citizen of Egypt, but as an unequivocal truth.
Every pharaoh undergoing the death and resurrection of the heb sed becomes a god. That’s why Ma’at was given to us in the first place
, Huy realized.
That’s why adherence to the harmony of both cosmic and earthly laws she represents is so vital. Even the King himself must obey them as diligently as every one of his citizens. He must be worthy of godhead, and we, his subjects, must give him the same deference Ma’at demands of him. But does every King merit true godhead? Do the rites of the festival confer transmutation no matter what the character and deeds of royalty may be? What of the appalling vision granted me regarding the baby Prince?

Huy groaned softly and Perti, standing guard not far away, glanced towards him. Huy uncrossed his legs, leaned back against the tree sheltering him, and waved at Perti.
If that child grows up to sit on the Horus Throne and repudiates all gods but the Aten, Ma’at will desert us and Egypt will be defenceless
, he thought as Perti turned away.
I’ve felt the threat ebb and flow over the years. So has Mutemwia. Placing my nephew Ramose among the priests of the Aten’s shrine to spy for her signified her concern. But Prince Thothmes is fated to die, and nothing will prevent Prince Amunhotep from becoming the Hawk-in-the-Nest. Nothing, that is, but his death
.

The words were so fraught with horror that Huy pushed them away, deliberately calling his friend’s face to mind instead.
I’ll be with him and Nasha for the Feast of the Great Manifestation of Osiris on the twenty-second of this month
, he told himself firmly.
There will be good wine and feasting, and the closeness Thothmes and I have always enjoyed, and his son Governor Huy, my namesake, will greet me fondly and be full of local affairs to discuss
. Before the reassuring images he had conjured could fade, he got up and called for a litter. The streets and alleys of Mennofer would be brimming with life and he needed a complete distraction.

He was not sorry to leave the echoing corridors of the old palace. The scroll was returned to Ptah’s archivist together with a gift of gold dust for the temple and beer, honey, and almonds for Penbui himself. Perti had officially handed the guarding of the Fine District of Pharaoh back to its permanent soldiers. The rooms Huy and his men had occupied had been emptied and scoured. To Huy, the preparations for departure, grown so familiar to him and his servants through much travel over the years, seemed fraught this time with an entirely uncommon atmosphere of change,
as though
, Huy thought,
we have all been living under a spell, taking the heka into our bodies where it has begun to remake us so that everything we know feels strange
.

At dawn, he stood at the handrail of his barge with Amunmose and Perti as the oarsmen carefully guided the craft into the slowly sinking level of the river. There was no reason why he should feel tired, but all he wanted to do was quickly reach the city he knew and loved and then sink onto the couch in Thothmes’ familiar guest room. There was an uncharacteristic ache along his spine, and the knuckles of his left hand throbbed for no reason.