by Paul Doherty
‘You,’ she pointed at him, ‘you can withdraw.’
He made to protest. ‘You shall withdraw,’ her voice rose, ‘and only approach my presence at my command. My daughters?’
‘Your Majesty,’ the Captain replied, ‘your daughters will be allowed to visit you whenever you wish. But as for withdrawing …’
‘Do as Her Majesty commands,’ I ordered, winking quickly at the man. He bowed and marched away. Nefertiti, plucking at my robe, gestured at me to follow. I did so, closing the door behind me, and leaned against it. She went across and sat on the edge of a small divan. For a while she just sat, face in hands, weeping quietly. I crossed to the table and poured out wine, specially chilled, and brought it across. She snatched it from my hands and drank greedily. I made to go but she called me back, throwing cushions at her feet for me to sit. She lifted her face, pale and drawn, but her eyes were still as beautiful, made even more so from their tears.
‘Mahu, did you know?’
‘Mistress.’ I shook my head. ‘By all that is holy, I knew nothing. I didn’t notice her.’
Nefertiti handed the wine-cup back to me. She sat running a finger along a plucked eyebrow. ‘I didn’t notice she was missing, Mahu. I even thought she had been sent back to Thebes. Where was she kept?’
‘She had her own small palace,’ I replied. ‘Madam, didn’t you know what was coming?’
‘Yes and no,’ she replied wearily. ‘After the birth of our last daughter, the Beloved no longer approached my bedchamber. He grew cold and distant. He would often ask me about my days in Akhmin. My relationship with my father.’
‘And?’ I dared to ask.
‘I tell you what I told him. My past is my past and so is his. Sometimes he would speak sharply to me. He would remind me that he was the son of the Aten. No, that’s wrong! You know the truth, don’t you, Mahu? My own father has told me often enough. Akhenaten believes he is the Aten himself. He is the God Incarnate, the Possessor of all Wisdom. He came to resent my very presence.’
I sat on those cushions in that beautiful, opulent chamber with its ivory-inlaid caskets, exquisite bed shrouded in white linen and delicate furniture. The walls were painted with the most pleasing scenes, made fragrant with flower baskets and pots of perfume. I realised then why Ay had whistled up the Sekhmets, why Horemheb and Rameses were so worried. The City of the Aten, my master’s dream, were teetering on the brink of ruin. Nefertiti, as if speaking to herself, recited a litany of grievances. I kept silent. I did not question her about the potions she had given Khiya, nor did I dream of mentioning Pentju’s name, though I suspected what had happened. At last, overcome by the effects of the wine and her own nervous exhaustion, Nefertiti lay down on the divan, pulled a cushion beneath her lovely tear-streaked cheeks, and fell asleep.
For a while I just knelt and studied that exquisite face framed by its glorious red hair. Then, leaning closer, I kissed her gently on the half-open lips still sweet with the taste of wine. I rose to my feet and walked to the door.
‘Mahu,’ she called out. I didn’t turn but paused, my hand on the latch. ‘I made a mistake, betrayed by my own pride and arrogance.’
I opened the door and left. I made my way to the mansion of the Lady Khiya, a palatial residence in its own grounds surrounded by a high-bricked wall. The gates were heavily guarded. My presence there was questioned by mercenary officers who treated me more as an enemy than someone they knew. However, I was persistent. At last I was ushered through. Pentju, grey-faced and hollow-eyed, met me in the garden. I told him what had happened. He smiled and nodded in satisfaction. When I struck him in the face, he didn’t object or call for the guard, but clambered slowly to his feet, wiping the blood from his nose, laughing quietly to himself. I struck him again, even as I could hear the hymn of lamentation from the house as Khiya’s body was being prepared for burial in one of the tombs in the eastern cliffs.
‘Will you hit me again?’ Pentju nursed the side of his face. ‘Or is it a case of doctor heal thyself?’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Why not?’ Pentju’s sly eyes creased in a smile. ‘Why not, Mahu? To be treated like a dog in front of the court! My arse exposed like some naughty schoolboy! To receive no apology! To be banished! The same for Khiya. She became pregnant about eighteen months ago but the baby was premature.’
‘How?’ I asked.
‘How do you think babies are conceived?’ he spat back.
I raised my hand.
‘Mahu, Mahu,’ he grasped my wrist and gently lowered my arm. ‘Khiya was cunning as a monkey. She suspected Nefertiti’s gifts of wine and food contained potions which would either stop her conceiving or destroy anything formed in the egg. I told her only to eat and drink what I gave her. The Divine One often came here. Oh, I thrilled at what Khiya told me. How he was growing tired of Nefertiti who saw herself as his equal both before man and god. How bitterly disappointed he was that he had no son.’ Pentju shrugged and sat down on a wooden garden seat; he picked up a small pot of flowers and kneaded the black soil with a finger.
‘When Khiya became pregnant again, Akhenaten swore me to secrecy. The same for everyone who worked here. The cooks, the maids, they are all Mitanni owing allegiance to Khiya and to no one else. She was instructed not to leave the gardens: the gates were guarded and, of course, no one ever suspected.’
‘Except for Ay?’
‘Except for Ay.’ Pentju sighed. ‘Somehow he heard the news but dare not tell his daughter nor raise the matter with Pharaoh himself. Ten days ago the child was born, strong and vigorous. Poor Khiya became weak. She caught a fever and died. Pharaoh had issued strict orders. No one was to come here. No one was to leave without his written permission.’
‘Except for me?’
Pentju closed one eye and squinted up at me, nursing his sore jaw. ‘She liked you, Mahu, you know that. Khiya really liked you. You were one of the few people who showed her respect. She thought you were funny. How did she describe you?’ He closed his eyes. ‘Oh, that’s it! Not a man who had lost his soul but one who was searching for it. In the last few hours before she died she was sweat-soaked, feverish, hot as a rock burning in the sun. She whispered your name and asked to be remembered to you.’
I felt a chill run through my body. Pentju had lost his cynical look. He rose and grasped both my wrists.
‘I allowed you in, Mahu, because of her.’ His voice fell to a whisper. ‘Because I have a message: “Tell Mahu,” Khiya said, “that I speak before I die and I will speak from beyond the grave”.’
I recognised the Mitanni turn of phrase for someone taking a great oath.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘“Tell Mahu to protect my son. Tell Mahu to be his guiding spirit, to protect him as he once protected the Veiled One. Tell him that perhaps my son is the One who is to come, the Messiah, the Holy One of God”.’
Pentju held me so tight, his gaze was so fierce, his voice so strong that I knew he spoke the truth.
‘I cannot.’
‘No, you must, Mahu! She swore a sacred oath. She called your name. Whether you like it or not, you are bound to that child. Stay here.’
Pentju left and returned a short while later followed by a young woman carrying a baby in swaddling clothes, suckling at her generous breast. The girl looked up at me and smiled. She chattered in a tongue I could not understand. Pentju replied and the woman placed the child gently in my arms.
It was the first time I, Mahu, had ever held a baby. I gazed down, pushing back the linen hood which protected the head. I noticed the skull was strangely elongated at the back but the face was most comely: little eyes stared unblinkingly at me, chubby cheeks, a little mouth opening and closing, eager for the nipple and the life-giving milk. I expected him to cry at being taken away from his suckling but he just stared at me. I felt his warmth seeping through the linen blankets. I pushed my finger into the little hand and smiled at the grip. Pentju said something to the wetnurse who withdrew. For a w
hile I just stared down at this tiny creature who had caused such confusion and chaos to the power of Egypt.
‘Tutankhaten,’ I whispered, ‘the Crown Prince Tutankhaten.’
Those small black eyes gazed at me owlishly. They say that babies don’t smile, that their expressions are simply caused by hunger and thirst. However, that little one smiled at me, a fleeting expression, as if he was savouring a joke. I handed him back to Pentju.
‘He is well and vigorous?’
‘Well and vigorous,’ Pentju agreed, ‘with no disfigurement or deformity.’
I thought he was going to add something else but he called the wetnurse in. He did not talk again about the oath but escorted me back to the gate. I realised there was an unspoken, unwritten agreement that, whatever happened, Khiya’s dying oath would bind me for ever.
For the next few weeks all was chaos and confusion. Ay retreated to his own quarters. Everyone else became busy in that frenetic, mindless way as courtiers do when they wish to ignore something and not face the consequences of what might happen. The Royal Circle didn’t meet. Queen Tiye visited both her son and Nefertiti, but it was obvious that the rift between the Royal Couple was bitter and could not be healed. Akhenaten himself seemed wholly taken up with his new son whilst Nefertiti now became a recluse in her apartments in the Northern Palace. No one could approach her. Even when I applied for leave to do so, Chamberlain Tutu instructed me never to ask again. Akhenaten also withdrew. Life in the city became slower, more disorganised. Work on the Royal Tomb and other sepulchres abruptly halted. Everything was in a state of flux and, as happens in the affairs of men, the blundering of blind fate intervened.
The texts in this tomb contain the most extraordinary errors and are often unreadable.
(N. de G. Davies’ commentary on the Hymn to the Aten as found in Mahu’s tomb.)
Chapter 19
The pestilence swept into the City of Aten at the height of the hot season during year thirteen of Akhenaten’s reign. A virulent plague, it brought the sweating sickness followed by instant death. Coming so swiftly on the rift between Pharaoh and his Great Queen, it looked as if the gods had finally turned their face against Egypt. The plague was brought to the quayside of the city and swept through the streets on both sides of the Nile. The empty house of Makhre and Nekmet, as Djarka often told me, had been a constant topic of conversation especially when people tried to buy it: they could see no reason why it should be left to lie uninhabited. By the time the plague faded during the spring of the fourteenth year of Akhenaten’s reign there were many empty houses in the City of Aten.
The plague, an invisible mist of death and destruction, wreaked havoc among all classes. The symptoms became the constant topic of conversation – a terrible sweating, lumps in the groin and armpits, vomiting and excruciating stomach pains. I know, I became a victim. I only survived thanks to Djarka, who brought in a Sheshnu wise man who fed me a mixture of dried moss mixed with stale milk. Djarka escaped unscathed, but for weeks I was in the Underworld, a frightening reality where the devourers gathered around me, men in strange armour, faces covered with ugly masks, grotesque beasts such as winged griffins, crocodiles with the heads of hyenas. All the dead clustered about me as if to celebrate some infernal party – Aunt Isithia, Ineti, Weni, Nekmet, Snefru, Makhre and all the rest, gloating to see me. I swam in a pit of fire with dark shapes hovering above me and raucous cries echoing through the red, misty air. I survived but thousands didn’t.
For most of year fourteen of Akhenaten’s reign I remained weak and helpless. I couldn’t stand for long; even a short walk exhausted me. Only after the appearance of the Dog Star which marked the New Year did my old strength return. Djarka allowed me to look at myself in a polished mirror.
‘You are as lean as a greyhound.’
I had changed. My hair had grown and was tinged with grey. There were marks around my mouth, and my cheeks were slightly sunken. I studied my eyes and pushed the mirror away.
‘What’s the matter?’ Djarka asked.
‘I have the face of a monkey,’ I replied, ‘but worse still, Sobeck’s eyes.’
‘It’s the effects of the plague,’ Djarka countered. ‘By spring you will be well again.’
Only then did he tell me the extent of the devastation. Great Queen Tiye, Princess Meketaten as well as Akhenaten’s two youngest daughters, not to mention scores of notables, scribes and priests had been swept away. Pentju was safe, so was the young Crown Prince, locked away in strict isolation. Horemheb and Rameses had fled out into the Red Lands. Ay, Maya and Huy had followed suit.
‘Karnak’s also dead!’
I put my face in my hands.
‘He ate …’
‘Don’t tell me,’ I whispered. ‘Let it go! Meryre?’
‘The demons look after their own master, still full of pomp and pus.’
‘And Akhenaten?’
‘Alive but a hermit.’
I glanced down, my hands were shaking. Djarka crouched before me.
‘You often spoke about her, Master – Great Queen Nefertiti! You cried out for her in the night!’
‘Well?’ I asked.
‘She survived, a prisoner of the Northern Palace. But, come, I must show you the city.’
Djarka brought a chariot from the imperial stables. The day was dismal and overcast. A cold breeze sent the dry leaves whirling, and he made me wear a cloak as he drove me into the city. Its streets and avenues were deserted. Houses had been boarded up. The Wadjet Eye had been daubed on walls. The desiccated corpses of rats, crows and bats were still nailed to the doors of houses where families had died. Smoke from countless pyres, built at crossroads and corners to fumigate the air, curled like snakes to sting one’s nostrils and throat. Carts, pulled by oxen, heavily laden with putrefying corpses, made their way out up to the rim of the eastern cliffs where fierce fires raged, burning the dead. Black plumes rose against the distant sky before being scattered by the breeze from the Nile. Markets were closed, only a few shops did business. Men and women, dressed like Desert Wanderers, hurried by, cloths hiding their heads, mouths and nostrils. Mercenaries, armed and ready, squatted or lounged, their very presence imposing a deathly stillness.
‘A city of the dead,’ Djarka murmured. ‘At the height of the plague, Master, it seemed as if these were more like the streets of the Underworld. Dead piled outside doorways, scavengers and looters busy. Fires burning as if the earth had turned to flame.’
‘Who kept order?’ I asked.
‘Ay, Horemheb and Rameses. They imposed martial law. The physicians say the plague is over but people are drifting away.’
We approached the great Temple of the Aten. A side gate creaked in the wind. Priests stood about in small groups. A dour spirit now possessed this place. There were no pilgrims, no smell of incense came from the sacrificial fires. The gardens which fringed the avenue leading up to the temple were choked with weeds and badly tended.
‘Look at the graffiti,’ Djarka urged. He reined in the horses and we got down. The lampoonists had been busy with caricatures of Akhenaten. These self-appointed artists missed no details of the King’s physique: the strange, elongated head, bulbous slitted eyes, narrow chin, heavy lips and swollen stomach. In these pictures, however, the King had no grace or beauty; he was depicted as feckless, a drunkard, bleary-eyed and badly in need of the attention of the royal dresser. Other pictures represented the world turned upside down. One showed a harsh-faced cat standing erect, clutching a shepherd’s hook, herding a flock of birds. Another depicted a hippopotamus perched in a tree, a servant in the shape of a crow ready to tend to him. A third showed a small boy before a court of justice. The policeman was a cat whilst the judge, garbed in his insignia of office, was a large mouse with protuberant chest and stomach, slitted eyes and a narrow elongated face. Next to this painting an army of mice stormed a fortress, defended by starving cats drawn very cleverly with the features of Akhenaten, Nefertiti and others of the royal court.
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nbsp; We climbed back into the chariot and Djarka drove me home along those same smoke-filled, sombre streets. I must have been noticed for three days later I received a summons from the Royal Palace. As Djarka escorted me along its deserted corridors, the only people we glimpsed were mercenaries and household troops. The Chamberlain who accompanied us whispered how this was the Divine One’s wish.
‘He has dismissed all his servants,’ the fellow confided, ‘for he trusts none of us.’
Guards at the entrance to the Throne Room searched me and Djarka. He was told to wait as the door was opened. I was almost pushed into the dark, sour-smelling room lit only by a few oil lamps and the rays of a weak sun pouring through the high oblong windows. I’ll never forget what I saw. Most of the chamber was in darkness. The only light seemed to be around the throne where Akhenaten slouched naked except for a loincloth and a pectoral of dazzling fire around his neck. A girlish voice told me to approach. I did so and stood before the throne, too shocked to make the obeisance. Akhenaten’s head was shaven; the lower part of his face was covered in stubble, his eyes hollow and sunken peered at me like fluttering oil lamps. Ankhespaaten was sitting in his lap feeding him from a cherry bowl whilst on a cushioned chair to his right his eldest daughter Meritaten lounged, cradling a wine-cup. Both rose as I entered. They were pregnant, their bellies and breasts swollen. Dressed like hesets in diaphanous kilts above loincloths, embroidered shawls about their shoulders, they glittered in a glow of jewellery, necklaces and bangles which rattled at their every movement like the sistra of the dancing girls. Recalling myself, I knelt on the cushions. As I did so, I glimpsed the nails of Akhenaten’s fingers and toes; they were unusually long and dirt-filled, and his body sweat was powerful.
At first Akhenaten seemed to be unaware of my arrival. When I glanced up, he stared back in puzzlement. His two daughters sidled up on either side. Meritaten shyly tried to pluck the shawl closer about her. Ankhespaaten was brazen, making no attempt to hide her condition or the beauty of her young body. She stood slightly forward, resting against the throne, her right arm along its top, fingers ready to caress her father’s head. In her left hand was a deep-bowled cup of wine which she offered to her father. Akhenaten’s hand shook as he took it. He gulped noisily and belched. Meritaten kept her head down, the heavy braids of her perfumed wig half-concealing her face. Ankhespaaten, however, smiled boldly, even flirtatiously. Akhenaten moved on the throne.