The Sleeper in the Sands

by Tom Holland

  ‘From the Kingdom of the Stars,’ Nefer-titi replied, reaching out to take the King Akh-en-Aten by the hand, even as he tensed and sought to step back once again. ‘Do not be astonished,’ she whispered, feeling his resistance melt upon her touch, ‘for you should know, O mighty King, that there are as many worlds within the sky as there are grains of sand within the desert, and many orders of beings other than man - and yet all have been formed by the single hand.’

  Still King Akh-en-Aten gazed at her with doubt upon his brow. ‘You have come, then,’ he asked, ‘by the will of the Aten?’

  ‘Do you think,’ she answered softly, ‘that your prayers have gone unheard?’

  ‘My prayers?’ King Akh-en-Aten narrowed his eyes, then he suddenly laughed. ‘But I asked that the poison in my blood be purged away. I asked that I be able to love, and father children and know that I will not then wreak an evil on the world. I asked in short’ - he shrugged with bitterness - ‘that I be like other men. How can you possibly answer those prayers?’

  ‘Why,’ Nefer-titi answered him, ‘is your faith indeed so faint?’

  The King gazed at her with sudden astonishment and doubt, daring to wonder, just for a moment, what it might mean if her words could be true. ‘I wish . . .’ he muttered, ‘I wish I could believe.’

  ‘Why,’ frowned Nefer-titi, ‘what do you doubt?’

  ‘You say that you come from a Kingdom in the stars, and that you are a servant of the Aten, come in answer to my prayers. Yet how can I be certain you are not a demon in disguise, arrived here to tempt me?’

  Nefer-titi smiled, then gestured out towards the city spread around them. ‘Did you not see,’ she asked, ‘how the very flowers and trees rose to hail my arrival, and how the beasts of the deserts and the fields were in my train? Do you think that my powers could achieve such wonders and not also, O Pharaoh, grant you the gifts of life?’

  King Akh-en-Aten gazed at her with longing and a terrible, burning desire. ‘Then it is true?’ he whispered. You are indeed that blessing for which I have prayed to the All-High?’ A moment more he stood frozen; then he surrendered to his desire and Nefer-titi’s embrace. ‘What must I do?’ he whispered. ‘What must I do?’

  ‘Love me with all your heart.’

  ‘And that is all?’

  The Princess gazed at him deeply. ‘Do you think that we too, who once dwelt in the stars but now dwell here on earth, may not also know what it means to be alone?’

  The King met her gaze with wonder; but its depths now seemed immeasurable, and the loneliness he glimpsed there was immeasurable as well, icy and silent like the vast depths of the heavens; and he felt himself chilled, merely to glimpse it. Slowly Nefer-titi lowered her lashes, as though the depths were tears to be blinked away, and then she seized him fiercely, squeezing his hands in her own and almost biting his lips with her kisses. Breaking away once again, she pointed through the leaves of the garden to the sky. ‘Swear it upon the sun,’ she whispered, ‘whose sacred rays give life and light to all the world. Swear to me, O Pharaoh, that you will love me more than all this world.’

  ‘I swear it willingly,’ King Akh-en-Aten answered.

  ‘Then I grant you,’ she whispered slowly, ‘those gifts of life you desire. But be warned, for I swear this in turn to you -- should you ever love anything more than you love me, then at that same moment, O my husband, I will leave you for ever.’

  King Akh-en-Aten gazed at her in silence, a frown upon his brow, and then he smiled and shook his head, and kissed her once again. ‘We shall never be parted.’ He kissed her once more, gently, on her brow, then turned and left her, and summoned his jeweller, whom he ordered to craft two twin rings of gold. That same evening he brought them to Nefer-titi and showed her the design, which portrayed the disk of the sun with two worshippers beneath. He slipped one on to her finger, and one on to his own. ‘Wear that ring,’ he ordered, ‘and be certain of my love.’

  The next day Nefer-titi was proclaimed as Pharaoh’s Queen; and high upon the cliffs, in a ring about the town, her image was sculpted with King Akh-en-Aten’s, so that all who came might bear witness to her beauty, and know that it was she who was the guardian of the realm; and by her image were carved salutes, couched in royal terms: ‘The Heiress, Great of Favour, Lady of Graciousness, Worthy of Love, Mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt, Great Wife of the King, whom he loves, Lady of the Two Lands, She who is the most beautiful of the Beauties of the Aten, Nefer-titi, may she live for ever!’

  But at this point, Haroun saw the approach of morning and broke off from his tale. ‘C* Commander of the Faithful,’ he said, ‘if you would care to return here tomorrow evening, then I shall describe to you the fruit of King Akh-en-Aten’s love for his Queen.’

  And so the Caliph did as Haroun suggested; and the following evening he returned to the mosque. And Haroun said:

  As she had promised she would do, the Queen brought great joy to King Akh-en-Aten, and the blessings of plenty and peace to all his lands. In the fields the crops grew plentiful and rich; upon the Nile the ships were loaded with good things; within the house of every person there was contentment and health, and upon every table in the land a weight of wondrous foods - almonds and nuts, pastries and chickens, sweetmeats and rare fruits, and well-buttered lambs. But most blessed of all, and most filled with joy, was the new city built upon the crescent plain, for there Nature herself seemed at peace with man, so that the beauties of both dwelt together side by side. By its streets could be found every bright-petalled flower, every sweet-smelling plant, every shade-granting tree; and within its gardens and its pools every wondrous kind of animal, every living thing of beauty granted breath by the sun. Nor did the wonders in the city made by man -- all the works subtly crafted from metal, wood or stone -- pale in comparison; for they were rich in splendour, and loveliness, and comfort. The walls were covered with hangings of rose silk, the floors were spread with brightly patterned rugs, and the cooling marble was interlaced with gold; in every hall was a fountain, and in every garden a pool. Never before had so marvellous a city been upraised; and people named it, in astonishment, ‘the Dwelling of the Sun’.

  Yet there was no one happier in all that happy city, no one more joyous than King Akh-en-Aten himself. What he had always most desired was now his at last, for the Queen bore him children -- sisters for Smenkh-ka-Re, twin daughters at first, then a third and then a fourth. Carefully nursed upon their mother’s own milk, they grew up blessed by the love of their father, for it was Pharaoh’s greatest pleasure to sit with his family in the shade of his garden, by the side of his Queen. At such moments he would gaze up at the sun and raise a heartfelt cry of thanks, then turn to his Queen and whisper in her ear, ‘Truly, there has never been a man so blessed as me!’ She would smile at this, and make no reply, save to stroke his cheek and kiss him softly. Then one day he turned to her and whispered in her ear, gazing at his children, ‘Truly, they are more precious to me than all of this wide world!’ Again the Queen smiled; but this time she did not kiss him and, as she lowered her eyes, so she veiled the glint of something strange.

  It was the very next day that King Akh-en-Aten was visited by his mother, who reported how her three lions had all fallen ill. These beasts had been found in the trees of her garden, draped upon the boughs and perfectly tame, upon the day of the arrival of Queen Nefer-titi. Where they had come from was a mystery; but Queen Tyi, enraptured, had adopted them straightaway. King Akh-en-Aten too, in memory of his childhood, had come to love them deeply, and so the news of their sickness filled him with distress. He ordered his physicians to tend to the lions, but in vain, for the next day they seemed even more ill, and dangerously weak as though emptied of their blood. Then the next day they could barely raise their heads up from the ground, and Tyi came to her son and spoke to him in private. She claimed to have seen, at the darkest hour of night, while gazing from the window of her chamber, the figure of a woman gliding through the shadows, unearthly and strange like a brea
th of gold upon the breeze. Tyi had found herself utterly frozen, even as she watched the woman lie beside the lions, petting them, and then draining them, each in turn, of their blood. ‘And when she had finished her meal,’ Tyi continued, ‘she raised up her head, and I glimpsed her face, and I saw, O my son -- I saw it was the Queen!’

  King Akh-en-Aten gazed at her in astonishment, and then in anger, as he realised that his mother was speaking in earnest. ‘Why are you telling me this lie?’ he cried out bitterly.

  ‘I tell you,’ she answered, ‘it is not a lie, but the truth.’

  ‘How can it be?’ King Akh-en-Aten exclaimed. ‘You know full well, it was only upon the Queen’s arrival in this city that the lions appeared at all. How can she be guilty of their sickness, when everywhere, like the sun, she grants the blessings of life? Look upon yourself, O mother!’ He seized a mirror, and raised it to her face. ‘You no longer bathe in blood, yet your face has stayed the same. You no longer drink your potions, yet you seem unwithered by your years. How can that have been achieved, save by the powers of the Queen?’

  Tyi stared at the reflection of herself within the glass. ‘I do not know,’ she answered, finally lowering her gaze. ‘And yet . . .’ -- she shrugged despairingly -- ‘I can be certain of what I saw.’

  But the King, in a rage, refused to listen to his mother any more, and the next day, when she brought him the news of the lions’ deaths, he could barely bring himself to show regret. His mother gazed at him with bitter reproach. ‘When you were young,’ she said, ‘you would have suffered a terrible grief over this.’

  But King Akh-en-Aten shook his head. ‘All is changed,’ he replied. ‘Not even the keenest grief can pierce my heart now. Whatever I lose, still I have my Queen, who is more precious to me than all this wide world.’ And so saying he turned and left his mother behind, and searched out his Queen, and held her fast in his arms. She smiled at him, and this time she did meet his kiss; and all was calm for the following year.

  But then it happened that Ay came to him, to say that his wife -- Kiya’s mother, the Lady Tiya - had fallen sick. King Akh-en-Aten ordered his finest physician to her side; but again, as with the lions, every effort seemed in vain, for as each day passed so the Lady Tiya grew weaker and more pale, as though she were being drained of all her blood. Then Ay came to his nephew and spoke to him in private, and said how he had seen a shadow bending low across his wife, drinking from wounds to the Lady Tiya’s chest; and that when this shadow had raised its head, he had seemed to recognise the face of the Queen. King Akh-en-Aten was immediately thrown into a rage, and accused his uncle of having drunken dreams; but Ay answered him, in a towering fury of his own, by saying that the wounds could still be seen across the Lady Tiya’s breasts.

  But the King refused to listen any more, and the next day, when Ay brought him the news of the Lady Tiya’s death, his sorrow seemed strangely distanced and dulled. Ay frowned, his honest face furrowed in puzzlement. ‘When you were young,’ he said, ‘you would have suffered a terrible grief over this.’

  But King Akh-en-Aten shook his head. ‘All is changed,’ he replied. ‘Not even the keenest grief can pierce my heart now. Whatever I lose, still I have my Queen, who is more precious to me than all this wide world.’ And so saying, he turned and left his uncle behind, and searched out his Queen and held her fast in his arms. She smiled at him, and met his kiss; and all was calm for the following year.

  But then it happened that Kiya, whom King Akh-en-Aten - with the encouragement of the Queen -- had banished to the Royal Harim, came to him with the news that his youngest daughter was sick. The King gazed at Kiya with doubt and suspicion, for since the coming of Nefer-titi, he had not been able to endure the sight of his former Queen; but then he agreed to accompany her to his daughter’s bed. The little girl was shivering, very pale and weak; and when Kiya lifted the coverlet from her chest, King Akh-en-Aten saw there were delicate scars in a pattern across her chest. ‘My father,’ Kiya whispered, ‘when my mother, the Lady Tiya, fell sick, discovered the same strange marks upon her. I know that he told you of them, and what he suspected the cause of them to be. So when I heard of your daughter’s sickness, I resolved that I would come to you myself.’

  Still King Akh-en-Aten gazed down at his softly moaning child and did not choose to meet with Kiya’s eye. ‘See that she wants for nothing,’ he said at last. He stooped and kissed his daughter on her brow, feeling how her skin seemed to prickle and burn, and then he turned and left her to seek out the Queen. But when he found her he discovered that all his questions were silenced, and he could do nothing but melt into the softness of her kisses. He said nothing to her of their daughter’s sickness; and the next day it was reported how their child had died in the night.

  Once again, it was Kiya who brought King Akh-en-Aten the news. She reached out nervously to touch him on the arm; but he flinched, and stepped violently away from her, and still he refused to look into her eyes but ordered her to go. She remained though, frozen and numbed, where she stood. ‘Your daughter is dead,’ she told him once again. She waited for his reply, but still there came no answer. ‘When you were young,’ she continued at last, ‘you would have suffered a terrible grief over this.’

  But King Akh-en-Aten shook his head. ‘All is changed,’ he replied. ‘Not even the keenest grief can pierce my heart now. Whatever I lose, still I have my Queen, who is more precious to me than all this wide world.’ But when Kiya had left him, he raised his eyes up to the sun and felt a great wave of sorrow, intermingled with doubt. ‘So this is death,’ he thought to himself, ‘for which I have prayed so hard and so long. Yet now that I have it - yes, and all my children too -it fills me with horror, and its shadow seems to shade even the rays of the sun.’ Then he ordered a tomb to be prepared for his daughter, and he buried her there, he and his Queen together; and as he did so it struck him how he too would one day now pass away, and so he ordered a tomb to be prepared for himself, high in a ravine which lay beyond the plain. Upon its walls he commanded images of the Aten to be painted, its rays bestowing blessings of comfort and light; but upon one of the walls he ordered that the funeral of his daughter be represented -- her body laid out in state, with himself and all his family prostrated by their mourning, bowing before her as though it were to Death.

  And then it happened that Kiya came to King Akh-en-Aten once again, with the news that another of his daughters had fallen sick, and that she too had strange scars running up and down her chest. Now at last the King did raise his eyes to meet Kiya’s; and he felt soaring up within him, what he had long sought to repress, doubts and imaginings too terrible to utter. Yet Kiya, not needing to hear them spoken, took him by his arm and led him to his daughter, so that he could see for himself the evidence of the wounds. Then she led him into a neighbouring room, for the shadows of evening were starting to lengthen, and the two of them sat there concealed behind a curtain. Dusk grew into night, the long hours passed, and still the sick girl lay undisturbed. But then at last, upon the distant howling of a jackal, King Akh-en-Aten felt a sudden gale blowing through the room, so that the curtain before him was ripped down from its hangings and he saw, bending low across his daughter’s bed, a shadow which was formed, so it seemed, from streaks of flowing gold. This shadow was drinking from his daughter’s chest; and yet the King found that he could neither move nor speak. Then at last, when his daughter lay bled utterly white, the shadow shimmered to its feet and turned to meet his eye. Still, for a second more King Akh-en-Aten sat frozen in silence; and then he cried out in wordless fury and disbelief.

  The Queen smiled at him. Her cheeks seemed flushed, her lips very red. She glided across to him, and reached out to touch his cheek. ‘O my beloved,’ she whispered, ‘do you not love me more than all the world?’

  For a moment, such seemed the weight of pain upon his chest that King Akh-en-Aten discovered that again he could neither move nor speak. ‘Love you?’ he whispered at last. He gazed down at the corpse of his se
cond daughter. ‘Love you?’ he repeated. Suddenly, he laughed.

  But the smile upon the Queen’s lips had at once begun to fade. ‘So you have chosen,’ she whispered; and King Akh-en-Aten glimpsed in her eyes that terrifying loneliness which he had seen once before -- as deep and eternal, so it seemed, as the skies. She raised her hand before him and, with a single graceful movement, she drew the ring from her finger, then turned and flung it from the room into the night. Upon the same gesture, she too seemed to rise and fade away, melting upon the darkness, so that only her voice still lingered in the air. ‘Farewell, O my Husband. Forever, farewell.’ Then that too seemed to fade into the darkness of the night, and all in the room was silence once again.

  King Akh-en-Aten turned to Kiya. ‘How I have wronged you,’ he whispered. He met her lips. ‘And how I have missed you, O my love. For it was as though a mist had been cast across my eyes.’ He kissed her again. So urgently did he seize her, so tightly did he grip her, that she stumbled and half-sobbed, and sought to break away. ‘Your daughter . . .’ she cried out; but the King silenced her, crushing her lips beneath his own. He could feel the whipping of the flames through his limbs once again, the scorching fire such as he had not experienced since the coming of Queen Nefer-titi; and his desire seemed so violent that it felt like a pain. Kiya stumbled again as he began to thrust against her, and he fell with her this time - down upon the bed, down upon the body of his daughter; but still he felt the fire. He closed his eyes. . . the flames were reaching upwards and with a shriek, he imagined them beating against the sky; then he opened his eyes and saw his dead daughter’s face.

  When he gazed down at Kiya, her eyes seemed like glass and her face, like his daughter’s, appeared bled utterly white. ‘What have I done?’ he whispered. ‘I felt ... I felt . . .’ His voice trailed away. He struggled to think of some words of regret. But then, even as he opened his mouth to speak them, he heard from far-off a second shriek -- so piercing, so shrill with disgust and despair that both he and Kiya were utterly frozen by it; and then the scream rose again.