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face her husband. Sleep had smoothed the stress from her face and she looked much younger — the pursed lips had softened, and the wrinkles on her forehead and by her eyes had relaxed. There was something childlike and vulnerable about her expression, though the sadness remained, speaking to Huy in the cold dawn.
    He wondered what business had taken the Medjay away so urgently. To have sent horses indicated something of importance. The animals were rare, and normally reserved for the use of the royal family, the aristocracy, and the small cavalry units of the army.
    ‘What are you thinking?’ Taheb was standing next to him.
    ‘The captain has been called away. I was wondering why.’
    ‘It is a pity.’
    ‘It is intriguing.’
    ‘At least you were able to talk to him.’
    ‘Is that why you invited me?’
    Taheb smiled. ‘You’d better take care, or your work will have you questioning everything. We don’t always act with ulterior motives, you know.’
    ‘I am sorry.’
    She laid a hand on his arm. It felt warm, and her touch was positive.
    ‘But I suppose you are right to wonder why I asked you here, after so long.’ She paused, weighing her words. ‘It is true that I wanted you to meet Merymose. He is an old friend, and a good one. I thought that for you to know one trustworthy man among the Medjays would be helpful.’
    Huy looked at her.
    ‘I have done nothing to help you,’ Taheb continued, with less than her usual confidence. ‘I was not sure how welcome my help would be. Then, after Amotju’s death there was so much to arrange.’
    Huy remembered that one of the first things she had done was to settle the fee which he had agreed with her husband. He had wanted to refuse it, but necessity had overridden honour.
    ‘There will be another chance to meet Merymose and talk properly. Does he know who I am?’
    ‘I have not told him, but if he is curious he has only to consult the records.’
    ‘There is no reason for him to suspect that I would be in them.’ 
    ‘He is a good policeman. He does not like the political role Horemheb has cast the Medjays in. What did you tell him you do?’
    ‘That I was in business on my own account. He did not press me.’
    ‘And if he had?’
    ‘Then I think I would have told him the truth. You’re a good judge of character, Taheb.’
    She squeezed his arm. ‘Don’t think that the only reason for asking you here was to meet Merymose. Come and see me again.’
    The sun was touching the edge of the rooftops as Huy descended to the crowded district where he lived, and although in this dead season fewer people were about than usual, the narrow streets were already beginning to come alive. Walking briskly to clear his head, he decided to make a detour down to the harbour to see the obelisk. The stimulation of the evening before, the brief elevation to the life of the rich, being among people again, had now been replaced by anticlimax. There was no one waiting for him, and no one to care whether he worked or not. That there was no work to do lowered him further. He remembered the last days in the old city, when he had loafed around the decaying port aimlessly killing time. It seemed to him that he had got nowhere since then, but Taheb’s invitation, and the meeting with Merymose, had excited his heart: there must have been a reason for this to have happened now: or was Horus simply trying to organise his life for him?
    After a week, the obelisk was no longer an object of curiosity. The grain-broker had been right about the log rollers, on which it now rested, but Huy was the only onlooker as a dwarfed group of workmen under an overseer looped a complicated rope harness around the vast hulk. They worked hard and fast, and their task was soon completed. A drover brought up a team often oxen, which was attached by yokes to the towing hawsers, and within half an hour, amid cries and the cracking of whips, the great granite shape started to move forward, shunting over the