The King's Man Read Online Free PDF

he stayed within the main complex, and once again Huy was lost.
    He had spent a restless night but could not recall his dreams, waking with the first grey light of dawn filtering weakly down from the high clerestory window. He had lain quietly for a moment, sure that he had not woken of his own accord. His sleep had not refreshed him. He felt tired in body and stale in mind, with the need for poppy already beginning to agitate within him. He was about to shout for Tetiankh when he heard music coming from somewhere fairly close by. One lone voice was raised in song. Huy could just make out the words and decided that they were drifting in through the clerestory above him. “Hail Mighty Incarnation, rising as Ra in the East! Hail Emanation of the Holy One!” A chorus at once answered, “Thou art risen, thou art in peace. Rise thou beautifully in peace, wake thou to life!” There was more, but Tetiankh appeared with his first dose of poppy and the simple meal Huy preferred in the mornings. Huy, rightly assuming that his body servant would have wasted no time in becoming acquainted with the routines and rumours of the court, asked him who had been singing. Tetiankh paused, Huy’s tray in both hands.
    “The chanter is Ptahhotep, the High Priest of Ptah here in Mennofer. At least, he was Ptah’s High Priest. Apparently the One has made him High Priest of Amun and Fanbearer on the Left Hand. The responders are priests from Amun’s shrine.” He set the bread and fruit down by Huy’s hip and poured his milk. “The King is supposed to go to the shrine at dawn to break the sanctuary seal and be present when the Hymn of Praise is sung just as Ra emerges from the vagina of Nut, and then to perform the necessary tasks in the Holiest of Holiest. But our King finds it difficult to leave his couch, being something of an owl as we know, so unless it’s a god’s feast day, Amun’s High Priest and his acolytes come to sing the hymn to him outside his bedchamber every morning after they’ve sung for the god himself.”
    Huy, a wrinkled fig halfway to his mouth, suddenly looked at it, frowning. “Thank you, Tetiankh. Now tell me if you saw Amunmose taste this food and milk.”
    The man nodded, lifted a starched white kilt from one of Huy’s tiring chests, and laid it carefully over the chair. “I did. Amunmose knows what you like to eat. He chose and sampled everything himself. He did the same last night with the water beside your couch. I’ll go to the nearest bathhouse now and make sure everything’s ready for you.”
    Huy ate and drank slowly. He did not relish having to be washed and oiled in the company of others every day, but he supposed that given the hundreds of people inhabiting this warren it was unavoidable. He wondered how long it would be before he could have a home built for himself, just out of the city perhaps, by the river.
    Now, dressed simply as a scribe but ornamented as a favourite of the King, he strode after the servant, his palette and the scroll the Queen had given him under his arm. At last the man halted at a tall doorway. “This is where His Majesty discusses matters with his ministers,” he told Huy, bowing and waving him through. “I will return later and take you wherever you wish to go.”
    Huy thanked him and plunged into the throng of men milling about and talking loudly. As he moved, he caught a glimpse beyond them, into a vast room he recognized as the main reception hall. He was behind its rear wall, looking through an open door and across its dusky expanse to the wide, pillared entrance of the palace. Feeling a little less bewildered, he studied the officials around him. Amunhotep had complained in a letter that he was surrounded by old men, Huy remembered, but the faces he saw were mostly young. For a while no one noticed him, but at last he saw someone he knew. Heqarneheh approached him, beaming and bowing.
    “Great Seer, you are here! It’s been a long time since I chased a Prince