Tutankhamun: The Book of Shadows rr-2

by Nick Drake

  But suddenly a shout came from the back of the house, beyond the inner courtyard. Simut and his guards stood around a small door, like that which would lead to a storeroom. The cords were tied in what looked like the same magical knot as that which had tied the box containing the rotting death mask. On the seal, I saw a single sign I recognized too: a dark circle. The Sun destroyed. Suddenly elation gripped me. I tried to remain calm as I slipped my knife through the cord, so as to preserve the knot and the seal; and then I pushed open the door.

  I smelt at once the chilly, airless, hollow odour of a tomb opened after a long time-as if the darkness had slowly suffocated the air itself. Khety handed me a lamp, and I entered, cautiously. The thought that this was a trap flitted across my mind. I held the lamp up before me, and tried to see beyond its shivering light.

  The room seemed to be of a moderate size. Along one wall was a long bench, holding clay vessels in various sizes, and an astounding array of surgical instruments: obsidian knives, sharp hooks, long probes, cupping vessels and vicious forceps, all precise and highly ordered. Further on were a series of small glass phials with stoppers, each with a label. I opened one. It seemed to be empty. I kept it to examine in the light of day. Further down the shelves were more jars. I opened them at random; they seemed to contain a variety of herbs and spices. But the last one contained something I recognized: the powder of the opium poppy. Further along the shelf were several more jars, all containing the identical substance: a substantial supply. The bench was highly ordered and efficient.

  But as I stepped forward, I felt something crack and shatter beneath my sandals. I squatted down with the lamp and saw the floor was littered with bones: the little skulls and wing-fans of birds; the miniature skeletons of mice, shrews and rats; the jaws and legs of dogs or baboons or hyenas or jackals; and also pieces of larger bones, which I feared were human, smashed into shards. It was as if I had trespassed into a mass grave of all life. I held the lamp up to peer further into the dark. I saw something still stranger: from the ceiling on twine hung many bones, and broken pieces of bones, to make the shattered skeletons of strange, impossible creatures, part-bird, part-dog, part-human.

  Shuffling forward, trying not to tread on any more of the remains at my feet, and loathing the creepy touch of the hanging bones in my hair and on my back, I made out a large, low, shadowy object that stood at the end of the room. As I came closer, I saw it was an embalmer’s bench. On the bench was a small wooden box. Behind the bench, I saw a big black circle had been painted on the back wall. The Sun destroyed. I held the lamp up closer, and all around the perimeter of the circle were those strange, disturbing signs I had seen around the box: curves, sickles, dots and dashes. Spattered all across the dark circle were dripping lines of dried, dark blood. I looked again at the embalmer’s bench; in contrast to the wall’s record of butchery, it was as fastidiously clean as the surgical instruments that lined the walls. But they were not for healing. They were for torture. How many victims had he experimented on in here, as they screamed for mercy, for their lives, or for the mercy of death?

  The wooden box carried a label. On it was written, in a neat cursive, one word: ‘Rahotep’. It was a gift from Sobek to me. I had no choice but to open it. Inside I saw something I know I will always see whenever I try to sleep. Eyes. Human eyes. Arranged in identical pairs, like jewels on a tray. I thought of Neferet, and the two boys. All had missing eyes. And here was a box full of staring, quizzical, startled eyes, like a tiny audience paying me the closest attention.

  41

  I closed the box, and returned the eyes to darkness. This gift was a mockery. He had tricked me. He knew I would track him to his house. He knew I still did not understand what he was doing. The eyes were like signs-he was watching me. And if he was watching me, then what else did he know? Suddenly, fear gripped my throat; perhaps he knew about my family-after all, he had seen them at Nakht’s party on the roof of his city house. I must protect them. I would send Khety immediately to organize a secure guard. But then another thought came crashing in against the first; how had he realized I had discovered the connection with Mutnodjmet? And then another, still more alarming. We had left Mutnodjmet unguarded.

  The moment the boat docked at the Malkata Palace harbour, Simut and I raced through the guarded entrance doors, and down the long corridors. I racked my brains to recall the route to Mutnodjmet’s chambers, but the shadowy labyrinth of the palace confused me.

  ‘Take me to Khay’s office!’

  Simut nodded, and we ran on. I didn’t bother to rap on the doors, but burst through. He was fast asleep, snoring on his couch, his head back, robes still on, the cup of wine empty. I shook him violently, and he started awake like a man in an accident, staring wildly at the two of us.

  ‘Take us back to Mutnodjmet’s apartments, now!’

  He looked puzzled, but I yanked him to his feet and propelled him through the door. ‘Take your hands off me!’ he cried in his querulous voice. ‘I am quite capable of walking unaided.’

  He struggled, trying to rearrange his appearance into something like dignity.

  The doors to Mutnodjmet’s apartment were shut, and the cords tied and sealed. As we approached, I felt something crunching lightly underfoot. Puzzled, I crouched down and saw, in the light of our lamps, something glittering. I wiped some up on my finger and tested it on my lips. Natron salt. It was most likely the spillage from a sack that someone had carried into the apartments. But why would anyone do such a thing?

  I broke the seals on the doors and we entered carefully. All was silence and darkness. There was no sign of the twin dwarfs. Holding my lamp before me, I advanced along the corridor that led to the salon. But as I passed the store chambers, I saw something wrong. Two of the big storage jars had had their contents-grain and flour-emptied on the floor in neat piles. Simut glanced at me. I carefully removed the lid of one of the jars. Crouched inside was a small figure in good clothes up to his chest in his own blood; I looked more closely and saw the hilt of his jewelled dagger thrust into his heart. The back of his little head was smashed in. I opened the other one. The same.

  We entered the salon. There had been a struggle. Furniture had been thrown over. Goblets lay shattered on the floor. And there on a low gilded bench was a dark, grey mound. I carefully pushed handfuls of the salt away. Mutnodjmet’s eye-sockets stared back at me, white and empty; her hollow face, glittering with scattered salt crystals, was desiccated and wrinkled as if time had suddenly sucked her dry. Her lips were shrivelled and white, and her open mouth was dry as a cloth left out in the midday sun.

  ‘What’s happened to her?’ whispered Simut.

  ‘The natron has absorbed the fluids from her body. By now all her internal organs will have begun to turn to dark brown mush.’

  ‘So was she alive when he did this to her?’ The soldier shook his head at such sophisticated barbarity.

  ‘It would have taken time for her to die like this. She must have been maddened with thirst. And that’s what fascinates him. Watching people suffer and die, in great detail. But I’m not sure he does it only for the pleasure of witnessing their pain. The pain is only part of the process, not the end of it. He’s seeking something else. Something more original.’

  ‘But what?’ asked Simut.

  I stared down at the poor eyeless woman. It was the only important question.

  As we walked back up the passageway, I remembered the little glass phial I had found in Sobek’s laboratory. I opened it, but it seemed to contain nothing, despite the stopper and the carefully noted date. I noticed at the bottom a faint dusting of glittery white residue. I dabbed my finger and licked it carefully. More salt; but not natron salt. Some other kind of salt. It tasted familiar. But I could not place it.

  42

  Horemheb’s magnificent ship of state, the Glory of Memphis, was now anchored out on the still water of the lake. As it loomed over its lucid mirror image, it looked like a menacing weapon. The Eye of Horus was pa
inted repeatedly all along the hull, granting special protection. In amongst the Eyes there were images of the ram’s head of Amun, and winged falcons, and the figure of the King trampling his enemies underfoot. On the side lookouts the figure of Montu, God of War, strode defiantly; and the deckhouses were painted with multicoloured circles. Even the blades of the oars were decorated with the Eye of Horus. The menace was intensified by the corpses of seven Hittite soldiers, hanging head downwards, twisting slowly as they rotted in the morning sunlight.

  ‘I wonder if he has shown himself yet,’ I said to Simut, as we stood side by side, considering this intimidating vessel.

  ‘No. He will wish to make the most of his grand entrance into the palace.’

  ‘Do you know him personally?’ I asked.

  Simut stared at the ship.

  ‘I was a cadet in Memphis when he was already Chief Deputy of the Northern Corps. I remember he came to address a private feast for the promising officers of the Ptah Division. He had already married into the royal family. Everyone knew he would soon become general, and he was treated almost as if he were King himself. His speech was interesting. He said the priests of Amun had a profound flaw: their enterprise was founded on wealth, and in his view, in human beings the desire for wealth was never satisfied, but would always overreach itself and turn into decadence and corruption. He argued that this would necessarily and inevitably create a cycle of instability in the Two Lands, and therefore make us vulnerable to our enemies. He said the army had a sacred duty to break this cycle, by enforcing the rule of order. But it could only maintain the right to do so by sustaining itself in absolute moral purity.’

  ‘When men speak of moral purity, what they mean is, they have hidden their moral impurities beneath an illusion of virtue,’ I said.

  Simut glanced at me.

  ‘You speak well for a Medjay officer.’

  ‘I know whereof I speak,’ I replied. ‘Men are not capable of absolute moral purity. And that is a good thing, in my view, because if they were they would not be human.’

  Simut grunted, and continued to stare at the great ship in the harbour.

  ‘He also said something about the royal family which I have never forgotten. He said their priority was the perpetuation of their dynasty as the representatives of the Gods on earth. And naturally when that priority coincided with the interests of the Two Lands, then all was well. But he said when there was disruption or dissent, or when the royal family failed in its divine duties, the Two Lands should identify its own needs and values as paramount. Not those of the royal family. And therefore only the army, which desired neither power nor wealth for itself, but only the assertion of our order throughout the world, would have a sacred obligation to enforce its rule, for the sake of the Two Lands’ survival.’

  ‘And what do you think he meant by “disruption or dissent”?’ I asked.

  ‘He was implying the dangers inherent in the inheritance of the Crowns by a King too young to rule in any meaningful sense, under the aegis of a Regent whose interests were obscure. But I think he really meant something else.’

  He lowered his voice.

  ‘I think he meant the private continuity of the Aten faith in the family. The father’s banished God. That dangerous religion had already caused terrible chaos once in living memory, and it could not be allowed to rise again. He implied the army would not tolerate any sign of its return to public life.’

  ‘I think you are right. And that, too, remains Ankhesenamun’s flaw. For like her husband, it is difficult for her to disassociate herself not just from the failings of her father, but from the root of the problem: the banished religion.’

  Ankhesenamun was with her ladies of the chamber, who were preparing her for the formal reception. The rich scents of perfumes and oils drifted in the quiet air. Little gold pots and blue and yellow glass containers were opened before her. She held a fish in her hands made of blue and yellow glass, and was pouring some intensely scented essence from its pursed lips.

  ‘Horemheb has requested an audience. At noon today,’ she said.

  ‘As we expected.’

  She glanced at me, and then returned to a careful consideration of her appearance in the polished copper mirror. She wore a beautiful braided wig of short, tightly curled hair, and a pleated robe of finest linen, fringed with gold, which was tied beneath her right breast, enhancing her figure. On her arms she wore bracelets and gold winding cobras. From her neck, on gold thread so fine it was almost invisible, hung several pendants and an elaborate gold pectoral showing Nekhbet the Vulture Goddess, holding the symbols of eternity and with her blue wings spread out protectively. Then her assistants placed a remarkable garment around her shoulders, a shawl made of many small gold discs. She turned about, and glittered dazzlingly in the candlelight. Next, her assistants slipped on her sandals-thongs of delicate gold, straps decorated with small gold flowers. And finally the tall crown was placed on her head, and held there by a gold band decorated with protective cobras. When I had last seen her dressed in the royal robes, she had looked anxious. Today she looked supremely regal.

  She turned to face me.

  ‘How do I look?’

  ‘You look like the Queen of the Two Lands.’

  She smiled, pleased. She looked down at the pectoral.

  ‘This belonged to my mother. I hope some of her great spirit will protect me now.’

  Then, sensing my sombre mood, she looked at me once more.

  ‘Something has happened, hasn’t it?’ she asked suddenly.

  I nodded. She understood, and dismissed her ladies. When we were alone, I told her the news of the death of Mutnodjmet. She sat very still, tears running down her cheeks, marring the kohl and malachite make-up that had been so carefully applied. She shook her head, over and over.

  ‘I failed her. How could this happen in the palace, while I was here, sleeping?’

  ‘Sobek is very clever.’

  ‘But Ay and Horemheb killed her as much as this evil, repulsive man. They trapped her, and maddened her. And she was the last of my family. Now I am alone. Look at me.’

  She glanced at her royal outfit.

  ‘I am nothing but a statue for these garments.’

  ‘No, you are far more. You are the hope of the Two Lands. You are our only hope. Without you, the future is dark. Remember that.’

  When the Queen entered, a thousand people bowed low and fell silent. The palace reception hall had been luxuriously prepared for Horemheb’s visit. Incense burned in copper bowls. Vast, elaborate bouquets of flowers were set in vases. The Palace Guard lined the way to the throne. I noticed Ay was not present. The Queen ascended the dais, faced her officials, and sat down. And then we all waited in a silence that had to be endured for longer than anyone expected. The general was late. The dripping of the water clock measured the passing of time and the increasing humiliation of his absence. I glanced up at the Queen. She knew this game, and maintained her composure. And then finally we heard his military fanfare, and suddenly he was striding down the chamber, followed by his lieutenants. He stopped before the throne, stared arrogantly at the Queen, and then bowed his head. She remained seated. The dais still gave her the advantage of height over the general.

  ‘Look up,’ she said quietly.

  He did so. She waited for him to speak.

  ‘Life, prosperity and health. My loyalty is known throughout the Two Lands. I place it, and my life, at your royal feet.’

  His words echoed around the chamber. A thousand pairs of courtly ears listened for every nuance.

  ‘We have long trusted your loyalty. It is more than gold to us.’

  ‘It is loyalty that encourages me today,’ he replied ominously.

  ‘Then speak your mind, general.’

  He glanced at her, turned back to the chamber, and spoke to the entire gathering.

  ‘What I wish to speak of is for the Queen’s ears alone, and would benefit from a more private setting.’

  She
inclined her head.

  ‘Our ministers are as one with us. What matter could there be which would not be for their ears also?’

  He smiled.

  ‘Such matters as belong not to the state but to the individual.’

  She considered him carefully. Then she rose, and invited him to accompany her to an antechamber. He followed her, and so did I. He turned to me, furious, but she spoke firmly.

  ‘Rahotep is my personal guard. He goes everywhere with me. I can vouch absolutely for his integrity and his silence.’

  He had no choice but to accept.

  I stood by the door, like a security guard. They sat opposite each other on couches. He looked curiously inappropriate in this more domestic setting, as if walls and cushions were strange to him. Wine was poured, and then the servants vanished. She played the game of silence, and waited for him to make the first move.

  ‘I know the King is dead. I offer you my sincere condolences.’

  He observed her reaction closely.

  ‘We accept your condolences. As we accept your loyalty. And we offer you our own condolences on the dreadful and premature death of your wife, my aunt.’

  Instead of surprise or sorrow at this news, he merely nodded.

  ‘This news brings me grief. But may her name live for ever,’ he said, according to the formula, and with more than a touch of irony. Ankhesenamun turned away in disgust at his vanity and viciousness.

  ‘Was there anything else the general wished to say?’

  He smiled slightly.

  ‘I have a simple proposal to make, and given the sensitivities concerned, I believed it was correct to express myself in a private setting. I decided it was more sympathetic. You are, after all, the grieving widow of a great King.’

  ‘His death has deprived us all of a great man,’ she replied.