Tutankhamun: The Book of Shadows rr-2

by Nick Drake

  ‘You think of no one but yourself. I have risked everything for you from the moment you called for me. And now you think I will risk my own family? The answer is no. You must stay here, in the palace, and oversee the burial of the King. You must assert yourself in power. And I will stay beside you at all times.’

  She turned on me, her face suddenly crude with anger.

  ‘I thought you had nobility, I thought you had honour.’

  ‘I care for the safety of my family above everything. Perhaps to you that is a strange idea,’ I replied carelessly, and walked away, too angry to remain seated.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said eventually, lowering her eyes.

  ‘You should be.’

  ‘You cannot talk to me as you have done,’ she said.

  ‘I am the only one who tells you the truth.’

  ‘You make me dislike myself.’

  ‘That is not my intention,’ I replied.

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘I promise you, I will not let you come to any harm.’

  She searched my face, as if for confirmation.

  ‘You are right. I cannot run away from everything I fear. It is better to choose to fight rather than to flee…’

  We set off back up the dark path towards the lit chamber.

  ‘What do you intend to do now? Ay is anxious to proceed as quickly as possible with the embalming, the burial, and his own coronation,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, but even Ay cannot command time. The body must be made ready for burial, the tomb must be readied, the rituals must be meticulously observed; all of this takes the required and necessary number of days…’

  ‘Even so, Ay of all men can find ways to economize on everything.’

  ‘Perhaps. But how can he pretend the King is sequestered for so long? Rumour seeps out of silence like water from a cracked vessel…’

  She suddenly stopped, her eyes alive with urgent thought.

  ‘If I am to survive, I have very few choices. Either I make an alliance with Ay, or with Horemheb. It is a brutal choice, and neither option holds anything but revulsion for me. But I know if I try to assert my own authority independently as Queen and as the last daughter of my family, I cannot yet command the support I would need among the bureaucracies and-despite Simut’s support-the army. Not against the aggression and ambition of those two.’

  ‘But surely there is a third way. You play Ay and Horemheb off against each other,’ I suggested.

  She turned towards me, her face alight.

  ‘Exactly! Both would prefer me dead, but they realize alive I am a valuable asset to either of them. And if I could make each think the other wanted me, then, as men do, they might fight to the end to possess me.’

  Suddenly, as she spoke with such conviction and passion, her mother’s face appeared in hers.

  ‘Why are you staring at me like that?’ she asked.

  ‘You look like someone I once knew,’ I replied.

  She understood at once who that might be.

  ‘I am sorry for you, Rahotep. You must miss your family and your life. I know you are only here because I called to you to help me. It is my fault. But from now I will protect you with all my power, such as it is,’ she said.

  ‘And I will do everything I can for you. Perhaps we can protect each other.’

  We bowed our heads at each other.

  ‘But I need to ask you to do something for me now,’ I said.

  She quickly supplied me with what I needed: papyrus, a reed pen, a palette containing two cakes of ink, sealing wax and a small pot of water. I wrote quickly, and the characters flowed from the pen with an urgent fluency of love and loss.

  To my dearest Wife and Children

  This letter must stand in my place. I have been detained for longer than I wished on my task. Know that I have returned safely from my journey. But it is not possible yet to return to you myself. Nor can I tell you when I shall once more walk through our door. I wish it could be otherwise. May the Gods help you to forgive my absence. I enclose a sealed letter for Khety. Please give it to him as soon as possible.

  I shall shine through love for you all.

  Rahotep

  Then I wrote to Khety, telling him exactly what had happened to me, and what I needed him to do. I rolled both letters up, one inside the other, sealed them and handed them to Ankhesenamun.

  ‘Give these letters to Simut, and have him deliver them to my wife.’

  She nodded, and hid them away in her writing chest.

  ‘You trust him?’

  I nodded.

  ‘He will be able to deliver these letters undiscovered. It is not possible for you to do so,’ I said.

  Thinking of my family, I felt the pieces of my heart grinding against each other like shards of glass in my chest. Then suddenly we both heard something outside the double doors, and they were flung open.

  39

  Ay entered the chamber, followed by Simut, who closed the door behind him.

  Ay gazed at me with his stony eyes. I could smell once again the lozenge of cloves and cinnamon that he sucked constantly in an effort to relieve the pain in his rotting jaw. For him to reappear at this hour of the night could only mean bad news. He sat down upon a couch, rearranged his linens meticulously, and nodded to Ankhesenamun to sit opposite him.

  ‘Horemheb’s ship of state has been sighted to the north of the city,’ he said, quietly. ‘He will arrive here soon. When he does so, I am certain he will request an audience with the Queen. I suspect he must know the King is dead, even though there has been, and will be, no announcement. How he knows this is a matter for investigation. But we have priorities. First, we must agree a strategy for managing this unfortunate eventuality.’

  Before Ankhesenamun could reply, he continued.

  ‘Clearly, he will have considered, as I have done, the advantages or otherwise of an alliance with you. Like me, he will recognize the value in your ancestry and the contribution your image might make to the continuing stability of the Two Lands. I am sure he will make an offer of marriage. He will couch it in favourable terms, such as: he will father sons, he will promote you as Queen, and he will bring the security of the army of the Two Lands to support your mutual interests.’

  ‘These are interesting and, on the surface, favourable terms,’ she replied.

  He glared at her, and continued: ‘You are still a fool. He will rid himself of Mutnodjmet, and marry you to promote his own legitimacy within the dynasty. He will father sons for the same reason. Once you have supplied him, he will dismiss you, or worse. Look what he has done with his own wife. Accept his offer, and he will destroy you in the end.’

  ‘Do you think I do not know this?’ she replied. ‘Horemheb despises my dynasty and all it has stood for. His ambition is to create his own. The question for me is whether my survival and that of my dynasty through my future children is more assured with him than it would be otherwise. What other choices do I have?’

  ‘It would be naive to the point of idiocy ever to think anything of yours would be assured with him.’

  She rose and paced the chamber.

  ‘But my life and the future of my dynasty is not assured with you, either,’ she replied.

  He did his crocodile imitation of a smile.

  ‘Nothing in this life is certain. All is strategy and survival. And so you should consider the advantages that might lie in an alliance with me.’

  She gazed at him imperiously.

  ‘I am no fool. I have considered instead the advantages to you of an alliance with me. Marriage to me would grant you the final legitimacy of my dynasty. I would be the vessel of your ambitions, now that the King is dead. You could assert your authority even more extensively, as King in name and deed,’ she said, as she walked around him.

  ‘My own ancestors have been intimately allied to the royal family for several generations. My parents served your parents. But as King, in return for marriage I would offer you the support of the priesthood, the off
ices and the treasury, as protection against Horemheb and the army. For make no mistake, he is planning a coup.’

  ‘I see. That is also an interesting prospect. But what of the future? You are very old. When I look at you I see a sad, old man. A man sick of the pain in his teeth and his bones. Sick of the effort of it all. Sick of being alive. You are a bundle of old sticks. Your virility is a withered memory. How could you provide me with heirs?’

  His eyes glittered with hate, but he refused to take the bait and reply in anger.

  ‘Heirs can be provided in many ways. A suitable father to your children could easily be found, with my help. But we speak too personally. What is most important is the exercise of authority for the sake of maat. All I do is for the stability and the priority of the Two Lands.’

  She turned on him now.

  ‘Your progeny is shadows. Without me your paternity will amount to nothing but dust. After your death, which will not be long-for all the powers in the kingdom cannot save you from mortality-Horemheb will erase your name from the walls of every temple in the land. He will bring down your statues, and demolish your offering hall. You will be as nothing. It will be as if you never lived. Unless I decide that you are useful to me. For only through me can your name live on.’

  He listened without emotion.

  ‘You make the mistake of hatred. Emotion will betray you, in the end, as it always does with women. Remember this: only through me could you survive to accomplish all that you wish. You should know by now death holds no fear for me. I know it for what it is. He understands.’

  And he pointed at me.

  ‘He knows there is nothing to come. There is no Otherworld, and there are no Gods. It is all nonsense for children. All that exists is power in the crude hands of men. That is why we are all so desperate for it. Otherwise what is there for men to shore against the inevitability of their own ruin?’

  No one spoke for a long moment.

  ‘I will consider everything you have said. And I will meet with Horemheb. And in my own time, I will come to a decision. It will be the right decision for me, and my family, as well as for the stability of the Two Lands,’ she said.

  He rose from the couch, and shuffled towards the door. But before he departed he turned around, stiffly: ‘Think carefully which of the two worlds is the lesser in evil. Horemheb’s army, or mine. And then make your choice.’

  And he left.

  The Queen immediately began to pace the chamber again.

  ‘Horemheb is here already. That is too soon! But why is he waiting?’ asked the Queen.

  ‘Because he knows he can create a situation of tension and fear. This is strategy. He wants to make it seem as if he is in control of what happens. Do not give him that power over you,’ I replied.

  She gazed at me for a moment.

  ‘You are right. We have our own strategies. I must maintain them. I must not be misled by fear.’

  I nodded and bowed.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked, anxiously.

  ‘I must talk further to Ay. There is something I need to ask him. Simut will remain with you until I return.’

  I closed the door, and quickly followed the shuffling figure up the dark corridor. As soon as he heard footsteps he turned, suspiciously. I bowed.

  ‘What is it now?’ he snapped.

  ‘I would like to know the answer to a question.’

  ‘Do not waste my time with your foolish questions. It is too late. You have failed in your task. Go away.’

  And he waved his bony hand dismissively at me.

  ‘Mutnodjmet is incarcerated here in the Malkata Palace. This was originally done years ago, under your orders, I assume in agreement with Horemheb. And I assume she has been more or less forgotten.’

  He looked surprised at the mention of her name.

  ‘So what?’

  ‘She is an opium addict. Who supplies her with the drug? The answer is: someone who attends her, in secret. She has obeyed his instructions in return for the gift of the drug for which she has, of course, a desperate need. It was she who left the death mask, and the carving, and the doll, in the royal quarters. Shall I tell you what she calls this mysterious man? She calls him the “Physician.”’

  Ay was listening seriously now.

  ‘If only you had discovered this weeks ago.’

  ‘If only someone had told me about her weeks ago,’ I replied.

  He knew I was right.

  ‘I think you must know his name. For it can only have been you who appointed him to her care in the first place,’ I continued.

  He considered everything for a long moment. He seemed profoundly reluctant to speak.

  ‘Ten years ago I appointed a physician. He had been my Chief of Physicians. But he failed to be useful to me. His gifts deserted him, and his knowledge was of no help in curing me of the maladies that beset me. So I made Pentu Chief Physician, and I gave that man the task of caring for the needs of Mutnodjmet. It was a private arrangement, in return for which he would be paid well, both for his work and his absolute discretion. He was to keep her alive, for the time being. There were severe penalties for any failure of secrecy.’

  ‘And what was his name?’

  ‘His name was Sobek.’

  My mind raced back through everything that had happened, to the day of the festival, to the day of the blood, and the dead boy with the broken bones in the dark room, and the party on the roof of Nakht’s city house. I remembered the quiet man of late middle age, with short grey hair untouched by dye, and the bony, minimal physique of someone who does not eat for pleasure. I recalled his unremarkable, almost simple face-hollow, as Mutnodjmet had said-and his stony, cold grey-blue eyes bright with intelligence, and with something like rage. I heard him say: ‘Perhaps it is the human imagination that is the monster. I believe no animal suffers from the torments of the imagination. Only man…’

  And I remembered Nakht, my old friend, and now it seemed also the colleague or acquaintance of this master of mutilation and mystery, replying: ‘And that is why civilized life, morality, ethics and so on, matter. We are half-enlightened, and half-monstrous. We must build our civility upon reason and mutual benefit.’

  I saw in my mind’s eye the grey man raising his cup and replying:

  ‘I salute your reason. I wish it every success.’

  Sobek. The Physician.

  ‘You look like you have seen a ghost,’ said Ay.

  40

  Simut’s elite guards took up positions along the dark, adjoining streets, and on the neighbouring rooftops. The city was silent, under the night curfew, apart from solitary dogs barking aggressively to each other across the darkness, under the moon and stars.

  Khety had returned Thoth to me, and the animal danced and chattered quietly at my side in pleasure at our reunion. But time was short. Khety and I had urgent news to communicate. As we made our way to this place, he had told me quickly, in urgent whispers, that my family were safe and well; and under Nakht’s care, the boy was improving. He had not died. Then he had wanted to know how I had identified Sobek. I explained it all.

  ‘Then we’ve done it,’ he said, delighted.

  ‘Unfortunately not,’ I replied.

  And having made him swear to keep the secret, I told him the story of the King’s death. For once he was utterly silenced.

  ‘Say something, Khety. You always have something ludicrously optimistic to say.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘I can’t think of anything. It’s an absolute disaster. A calamity.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I don’t mean it was your fault. You did everything that was asked of you. You followed your orders from the King himself. But what’s going to happen to us all now? The city’s already restless. No one knows what’s happening. It’s as though the whole of the Two Lands is on the precipice of an abyss, and at any moment we could all go tumbling in.’

  ‘These are dark times, Khety. But don’t be so melodramati
c. It doesn’t help. Have there been any more murders in the city, like those of the boy and Neferet?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Nothing. As far as I know. Nothing has been reported. It has all gone very quiet. Word got out on to the streets of the other murders. It travelled around the clubs very quickly. People are spooked. Perhaps they are just taking much more care.’

  I was puzzled.

  ‘But a killer like this will always find a fresh victim. The desire for the act grows greater with each murder, usually. It becomes an unassuageable hunger. We know he is an obsessive. So where has his obsession led him now? Why would he stop killing?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Perhaps he has gone to ground.’

  He nodded at the house.

  ‘Perhaps he’s in there now. Perhaps you’ve got him.’

  ‘Don’t speak too soon. It makes me feel superstitious,’ I replied.

  Sobek’s house stood in a street of discreet residences, in a good quarter of the city. Nothing distinguished it from the others. I nodded to Simut. He made a signal to the guards stationed on the rooftops, who leapt silently from roof to roof like assassins. Then, at another brief gesture of command, the guards who accompanied us attacked the solid wooden door with their axes. Quickly it was smashed down. A few neighbours, alarmed by the sudden commotion, peered out into the lane in their night robes, but they were peremptorily ordered back into their houses. I pushed ahead into a vestibule, followed by the guards who spread out silently, their weapons poised, and took command of each room, one at a time, gesturing in silence to each other. Others entered via the roof to secure the upper rooms. Each room was less interesting than the last. It seemed like the home of a solitary man, for the furniture was functional, the decoration modest in the extreme, and there was none of the normal detritus of everyday life. The place seemed lifeless. Upstairs were wooden chests containing efficient but unsophisticated clothing, and a few pieces of nondescript, daily jewellery. The place was deserted. He had eluded me again. Surely we had missed something? It was as if he had known we would find him. And he had left us no clues. But how could he have known? Bitterly disappointed, I walked through the rooms one by one, looking for anything that could give me a way forward.