by Paul Doherty
‘A soldier,’ he murmured, getting to his feet and prodding the man’s belly with his cane. ‘He does not look so dangerous now.’
The wound in the man’s neck, a dark-red, jagged gash, still glistened with blood.
‘Wrap him in sheepskin,’ he ordered the Kushites. ‘Give him the shroud of an accursed one. If there is a Hell, let him wander there for all eternity with my curse on him!’
The Veiled One grasped my arm and, leaning on his cane, hurried through the gates. I later discovered that the cart and tabernacle were also burned and the oxen which pulled it slaughtered, though the Veiled One never discussed the incident.
Once inside the house he retreated to his own chamber and stayed there until the following day. Just before dawn the Great Queen Tiye swept into the Silent Pavilion and was immediately closeted with her son. Later in the morning I was summoned to meet her in the audience hall. She asked me to describe what had happened, praised me for my vigilance and took from a napkin a beautiful amulet of blue faience depicting the sun rising between the twin horns of Hathor. The hall was deserted. All the servants had been dismissed, the window shutters closed. Tiye sat on the small daïs slouched on the cushions, though now and again she rose as gracefully as any temple dancer, to walk up and down. Sometimes she’d stop beside me, other times stand on the daïs. I kept kneeling on the cushion, my head down. She walked the length of the hall and came back, her slippered footsteps light and soft. Once again she sat down on the cushions on the other side of the table and gestured that I do likewise.
The Great Queen was calm though her eyes were bright and watchful, the skin of her face paler than usual. I did not know whether it was due to anxiety or the lack of any adornment. She was dressed very simply in a gauffered linen shawl across her shoulders, part of which served as a hood over her black hair gathered tightly at the back. She wore no jewellery, earrings or necklaces, only a simple copper bracelet on her left wrist. She kept playing with this as she studied me intently. I heard a sound and was about to turn.
‘Yes, Mahu, someone is there.’
I recalled the escort, those strange visitors to the house, and knew one of them must be standing, deep in the shadows, an arrow notched to his bow.
‘Mahu? Do you have anything to say?’
Those large dark eyes never wavered. I repressed a shiver and held her gaze. The Great Queen may have thanked and rewarded me but she did not trust me.
‘Describe the incident again.’
I did so. Tiye listened intently, asking questions.
‘It was planned.’ She slid the bracelet on and off her wrist. ‘Of course he will be dismissed as some madman with addled wits and disordered heart. However, I know and you know, Mahu, that it was planned. The dagger?’
‘Burned with the rest,’ I replied.
‘But did you see it?’
‘A long blade with an ebony handle.’
‘Given to him,’ Tiye declared. ‘He carried no silver or gold? No precious objects?’
‘A former soldier, I suspect,’ I replied, ‘to judge from the scars on his body and the welts on his back. I thought I had met him before.’ I described Aunt Isithia taking me to see my father’s corpse. Tiye dismissed this.
‘A former soldier,’ she mused, ‘who was hired by someone who promises largesse and great bounty. My son was known to travel along the riverside. The guards are there but, as you say, lax. As for you, Mahu,’ Tiye leaned forward and grasped my arm, her sharp nails digging deep, ‘the assassin was taught a hymn.’ She pressed her nails deeper. ‘A hymn to the Aten which he knew would catch my son’s attention. Anyone who sang, who knew the words of that hymn would rouse his curiosity. The cart is stopped and the assassin is given his chance.’
‘Except that I killed the assassin, Excellency.’
‘Yes, yes, you did.’ She dug her nails in one last time then withdrew her hand. For a while she sat plucking on her lower lip, eyes half-closed as if about to fall asleep. She asked me if there was anything else. I said no and, fast as a pouncing cat, she leaned forward and slapped me viciously across the face.
‘Aren’t you forgetting, Mahu, you most worthless of Baboons, the attack on the camp by the Kushites?’
‘But that was war!’
‘Was it?’ she demanded. ‘When I ask you a question, answer it fully. What were those words the Kushite muttered as he died?’
I repeated them. Again the plucking of the lip. I stared round the hall. Now it did not seem so colourful or bright but a place where death lurked, where secret, silent assassination was plotted. Another sharp stinging slap made me jerk. I stared across at the Queen; her eyes were bright with fury.
‘Is there anything else, Baboon? You must tell me the truth. For all I know …’ She let her words hang in the air. I knew what she was going to say. Was I to be trusted? Was I involved in the attack on her son?
I replied honestly, describing the incident of the figs and wine: this time she did not slap me but just sat, tears filling her eyes.
‘Whom do you suspect, Excellency?’ I burst out.
She lifted her head. ‘I could ask the same question of you, Baboon. You, with your clever eyes and ugly face. My son chose well. Whom do you suspect? His father, the priests?’
I nodded. She leaned across and caressed my cheek. ‘You’ve eaten the salt and drunk the wine,’ she whispered. ‘If I suspected you, Mahu, you’d die a choking death beneath the sands of the Red Lands. So listen carefully to what I am going to say. My son was born on an inauspicious day.’ She drew back, staring at the table as if talking to herself. ‘A difficult birth. I had sat in the child chair for an eternity. Pains, like flames of fire, coursed through my body. He was born just as the sun rose, and wrapped in swaddling clothes. I was weak, covered in sweat, the blood all about me. Even as the maids insisted that I retire to bed, I knew something was wrong. They kept him away from me, cared for by a wetnurse. Eventually I demanded the truth. The Divine One came down, my loving husband.’ The words had a bitter twist to them. ‘I went with him to the Royal Nursery. The physicians and priests were there, the air filled with their scent and babbling prayers. They showed me the child, my son with his strange, long head and misshapen skull. He was fully formed and strong, for he had been in my womb at least three weeks longer than he should have been. The physicians whispered, arguing amongst themselves. They did not tell me directly but I knew what they were saying. My son was cursed and should either be allowed to die or be exposed. I took off my shawl, wrapping it around that little body and plucked him up from the cot. I left that chamber and returned to my own quarters.’
She paused, staring down the hall, eyes narrowed, lips tight. ‘My husband came.’ Her voice was no more than a hoarse whisper. ‘He looked at the child and said that he was no son of his. I screamed at him – the most hideous threats, what I would do if the child was harmed. The Divine One truly loved me.’ Her face relaxed into a smile. ‘He agreed that nothing would happen, on one condition: he never saw him again. My husband, Mahu, is Amenhotep the Magnificent. He will not tolerate any imperfection or impurity, except in himself. Now I wonder, has he changed his mind? After all, the Crown Prince Tuthmosis will be his heir.’
I recalled that blood-stained napkin but remained silent.
‘And what will happen to his younger brother,’ she asked, ‘when I am gone? Kept here,’ she stared around, ‘well away from the public gaze and prying eyes, will he demand to be treated as Pharaoh’s blood brother? Go into the temples, Mahu, walk the streets of Thebes? You know the song as well as I do. “Pharaoh is Egypt, Egypt is Pharaoh, the beloved son of Ra.” How can the gods love Egypt if the Divine One has a disabled son, distasteful to the public eye? A cripple, malformed?’
‘He is none of those things, Your Excellency.’
‘No he isn’t, Mahu. In my eyes he is the Beautiful One.’ She blinked away her tears. ‘But it’s his heart not his body the temple priests fear. He has no time either for them or their god
s. Oh, I know about his dinner parties here and the way he mocks the shaven heads, the soft pates.’ She turned her face sideways, studying me out of the corner of her eye. ‘He has good reason to hate them. As a child he was moved from the nursery to the House of Life in the Temple of Isis. He was there two years before I discovered the cruelty and abuse to which he was subjected. They knew about his father’s disapproval and they mocked him. I took him out but, even at court, I could not protect him all the time. This place was Hotep’s idea.’ She gestured around. ‘I suppose he’s happiest here. He asks for very little.’
‘And Tuthmosis?’
‘His brother feels guilty. I am not too sure if it’s love or guilt.’
‘Could there be a reconciliation?’ I asked. Here was a Great Queen of Egypt confiding in a commoner, chatting about her son like some washerwoman down at the Nile.
‘Never,’ she replied. ‘My husband believes his second son is accursed. When he heard about this place he issued a decree. No one was to serve my son but grotesques.’ She smiled thinly. ‘Except you and, as for that,’ she sniffed, ‘well, never mind!’
She rose to her feet and walked down the hall. Whoever was lurking there stepped out of the shadows. I heard a soft footfall but I dared not turn round. She came back arms wrapped across her chest.
‘And the future?’ She sat down on the cushions. ‘And the future?’ she repeated as if talking to herself. ‘What will happen to my son when the Divine One goes into the Far West and I follow him? Will his brother protect him?’ She shivered and rubbed her arms. ‘And what happens,’ she continued in a whisper, ‘if Tuthmosis begets no heir but also goes into the Far West? Will the priests, the generals accept what they call a grotesque Pharaoh? Well, my Baboon, what do you think?’
‘Excellency, I think nothing.’ I was determined not to mention that I had seen the red-flecked napkin Tuthmosis had coughed into.
‘Go on, clever Baboon,’ she urged. ‘You are thinking something.’
‘May the Crown Prince Tuthmosis,’ I declared, reciting the conventional phrase, ‘live for a million years. May he enjoy jubilee after jubilee. May he see his children’s children and may his power and glory be felt by the people of the Nine Bows.’
‘So be it. So be it,’ Tiye responded.
‘But, if you have thought about the future,’ I chose my words carefully, ‘so has your husband, the Divine One.’
Tiye’s mouth opened and closed.
‘And?’
‘Is there somewhere a papyrus document, sealed with the Divine One’s cartouche, which gives instructions on what is to happen?’
Tiye closed her eyes. I had expected a blow, even an objection but we were past that. Tiye was chatting to me because, in truth, I was nothing: in the eyes of the Divine One, a mere fleck of dust, a few heartbeats away from total silence. But now I was voicing her own fear, like a priest in a chapel listening to the confessions of some devout pilgrims.
‘Is there, Your Excellency?’ I repeated.
‘What do you think, Mother?’
This time I heard the footstep and turned. The Veiled One, dressed in a long white robe gathered at the waist, stood a few yards away, an arrow notched to the powerful Syrian bow. He was standing slightly sideways, a calculating look on that long face. He was watching his mother, waiting for a signal.
‘Should we kill the Baboon, Mother?’
‘If you kill the Baboon, master,’ I replied, staring at Queen Tiye, ‘then you have lost a true friend and a lifelong ally.’
I heard the bow being pulled back but I couldn’t move. I sat frozen. Queen Tiye was no longer staring at her son but at me. I heard a sharp intake of breath, the twang of the cord and the arrow whistled past over our heads to smack into the wall. Tiye’s face creased into a smile.
‘Baboon can be trusted. Come, my son.’
I heard the bow and quiver clatter to the ground. The Veiled One joined us on the daïs, plumping up the cushions, sitting down breathing quickly, eyes gleeful and bright.
‘Did you really think, Mahu, I’d put an arrow into your back? Do you know what you are, Mahu? You are my baboon. When the Medjay go through the marketplace at Thebes their trained baboons go with them to catch felons and thieves. I am surrounded by felons and thieves, at least beyond these walls. You must have many questions but you never ask them.’ He leaned forward. ‘Where do my mother and I go at the dead of night? Who are those strange visitors? One day you’ll know. In the meantime you are to catch the thieves and felons who want to take my life and send my soul into the darkness. He who ordains all things has ordained this.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘I listened to what my mother has told you, it is the truth. I do not intend to die, Mahu, but to live for my true Father Aten, the Beautiful One, who rides on the Far Horizon.’ His hand curled out. ‘In whose eyes, a million years are as yesterday, a brief watch in the night. Oh by the way, your friend Sobeck …’ He glanced sideways at his mother. ‘I am sure he was betrayed. My mother used her influence to ensure that Sobeck does not die in the Red Lands.’ He stretched across and tugged my hair playfully. ‘You have won great favour, Mahu. Never forget that.’ He leaned back and rubbed his hands together. ‘In the meantime, let’s have a party. We’ll invite your friends from the Kap – it would be good to see them all again, wouldn’t it, Mahu?’
His mouth smiled but his eyes were cold, devoid of any feeling. Bowing my head, I realised that for better, for worse, in this deadly game of plot and counter-plot, I could not escape.
The hieroglyph for ‘The Beloved’ – mri/merry – combines the hoe and two flowering reeds.
Chapter 6
‘Pressed in the lovely flesh of a woman
Any heart would run captive into such slim arms!
She lords it over the earth.
The neck of every male moves to watch her go.
He who held such a body tight would know, at last,
The supreme delight.
She would require the best of the bull boys,
First amongst lovers!
You men look at her splendid going,
Our lady of love to whom no rival can hold a light.’
The harpist plucked at the strings, sending out the bittersweet sound. His shaven head went down, even as we clapped and cheered at the beauty of his song about the glory of love. The Veiled One’s hall had been transformed for this feast, lit by scented candles and oil glowing in precious alabaster jars. We sat at our ebony-inlaid table which groaned under a splendid banquet: fish, fried and grilled in a sauce of olive oil, onions, hazelnuts, salt and freshly ground black pepper; white fish, their firm flesh coated with the sauce of pine nuts, almonds and garlic cloves; beef and lamb covered with chick peas and cumin; tajeens of beef and lamb in artichoke. Our goblets had been constantly filled with the finest wines.
The Veiled One had arranged the tables in a circle, seating me on his right hand, his brother Tuthmosis on his left. All the others were there. He had even arranged an empty cushion for Sobeck and had plates and goblets laid before it. Tuthmosis had vehemently objected but the Veiled One had laughed and insisted that even at a feast like this the ghosts were welcome. Each of us had a heset, a temple girl. Clad in thin, gauze-like gowns, their every movement was emphasised by the tinkling bracelets on their ankles and wrists; their long elegant fingers glittered with rings, their nails were painted a deep purple. They were there to entertain, to flatter, to soothe our hearts and satisfy our every whim.
At first the banquet had been difficult. This was the first time we had all met since Sobeck’s banishment. Horemheb and Rameses were resplendent in their officers’ uniforms, Captain and Lieutenant of the Sacred Band. They wore round their necks a collar proclaiming their membership of the most redoubtable regiments in all the hosts of Egypt. Huy looked more relaxed in his splendid robes. Pentju and Meryre hadn’t changed much but sat together, whispering across the girl in between. Maya looked distinctly uncomfortable in a perfume-drenched wig, his face laced
with sweat, although he was as charming and vivacious as ever. The Veiled One was a perfect host. The setting of a place for Sobeck, the hosting of such a party and the invitation to Tuthmosis to join them were all part of a studied insult to his own father. He’d whispered this to me as I helped him dress in the cool of the evening.
‘I want my father to know, Mahu, that I will not remain silent, that I will not be kept for ever in the shadows and corners.’
The temple girls were trained courtesans but even they paused to study this strange-looking Prince. They would return to their temples, taking their stories with them: a message to the priests that the Divine One’s second son was not content to hide like a mouse or pass like a shadow through the courts of Egypt. It had been four days since that meeting with his mother in this very hall. The Veiled One had not discussed the matter again but I knew what he plotted, what he wished me to do. He had placed the swollen-throated Uraeus, the spitting-cobra of Egypt around his forehead.
‘The snake knows when to strike, Mahu.’ He turned from the glittering piece of polished silver which served as a mirror. ‘And so do you.’
For most of the meal my master had ignored me. Now and again he would whisper instructions and I would raise my hand for the steward of the feast or to summon Imri who guarded the entrance. The Veiled One became engaged in deep conversation with his brother. Only once did I catch fragments of their talk. Tuthmosis was urging his brother to be prudent, not to catch his father’s eye or incur his anger.
‘I already have.’ The Veiled One picked up his goblet and toasted his brother, then refused to answer the spate of insistent questions which followed.