The sun stood on the eastern horizon. The air retained the chill of deep night. Horemheb stood behind the sled that would carry the King’s bier. The white linen coat he wore chafed his neck. He felt as if he had been waiting for hours, yet it was only a few minutes.
With him were eight other men of highest rank—the Nine Friends of the King—all dressed as he was in white mourning, with white bands of linen knotted around their foreheads. These nine stood a little apart from the great crowd of courtiers outside the palace. The dawn wind toyed with their white clothes, rippling and shaking like strange feathers.
The sun climbed into the sky. Its golden light turned the desert cliff first yellow, then orange; it danced on the breast of the broad, all-mothering river. No one spoke.
A brass horn blasted. Horemheb startled at the sudden sound. Now the procession would begin. He felt freed of the waiting like a bird freed of the tether.
The palace was hung with blue lotuses, the flower of rebirth. The priests led the vast procession around the outer wall, chanting hymns and scattering the ground with incense and the husks of seeds. After the priests came the sled, drawn by red oxen, the sacred cattle of the north. The Nine Friends of the King followed after the sled, and behind them, in five rows, were the hundreds of the courtiers and priests, each bearing some object for the Room of Eternal Royalty, in the tomb house where Tutankhamun would live forever.
As the procession coiled around the building, Horemheb could discern the wails and cries of the women inside, who were mourning over the dead King. The keening of the women was lovely and eerie. Horemheb could not hear it without a quickening of the heart. The priests burst into the palace through several doors and windows. Chanting ancient phrases, the women barred their way. They strove to hold back the King, to keep him in the world of the living, but the priests broke through their ranks and bore off the King’s body.
As they came out of the palace with the body of Tutankhamun, the hundreds of people in the funeral parade bowed down to the earth. Horemheb bowed with them. Yet he lifted his head, at the last, to see the Grand Vizier, who paced solemnly along behind the body.
The old man wore the leopard skin of the Sem priest, who would hold the adz over Tutankhamun in the mysterious ceremony that freed the King’s soul from the flesh. The sheen of the skin of the beast made the old man look older still, a walking corpse. Horemheb saw how the Vizier walked with dragging feet, his eyes downcast, weary already. The ceremonies were long. Horemheb could not help but smile. He bowed his head into its proper pose.
The Vizier would be Pharaoh, but no seed of his would quicken in the womb of Ankhesenamun. When the Vizier died, the throne would fall to him who had waited and planned and foreseen what was necessary. Horemheb’s mouth was taut with his smile of triumph.
Two by two, crying out, the women were circling around the bier where the King now lay. Their voices lamented in the archaic words Isis had cried over the body of Osiris. Horemheb rose with the others at the jangling of the golden sistra. The front of his white coat was brown with dust.
Tutankhamun’s transformed body lay now on the gold bier. Its canopy fringe was tied in the sacred knots; the sun cast the shadows of the knots across the King’s arms. The Nine Friends went to take up the traces of the sled.
Horemheb passed by the dead King. Tutankhamun’s flesh had been transmuted into the incorruptible gold, the metal of the sun. His hands and feet were masked in gold, and amulets and instruments of power weighted every limb. The huge gold mask was the perfect image of the King. The mouth curved in the same indulgent pout and the wide eyes were bright. The braided beard of Osiris hanging on the chin only emphasized the King’s youth.
At the head of the sled, Horemheb found himself standing immobile, shaken by what he saw—by what he saw no more—the life counterfeited in gold, the death triumphant. Quickly the general turned away and went to take his place at the traces of the sled. He struggled to put his mind at rest. Yet he could not; all the years remaining of his life seemed to have shrunk down to a handful of days, and when he put his strength to the trace, it was himself that he drew on his inexorable path to the grave, and his triumph was lifeless, like the gold.
In the chambers of the Queen, Ankhesenamun was made ready for the night. She sat on a stool, and the strange women who served her now prepared her with sacred oils. She did not move; there was no reason to move.
Her head hurt, anyway, and it pained her to move. Her head had hurt ever since the stoning. And she was tired. It was easier to sit here and be tended, be cared for.
They lifted up the sacred crown and put it on her head. Her neck bent under its weight. She shut her eyes. They led her by the hand to her bed and she lay down on it, beneath the canopy of gold.
Hapure and Sennahet played at counters; Sennahet lost and began to argue over the stakes. While the two men were shouting at each other, Meryat came into the hut.
They goggled up at her, who stood above them. Her face was white and drawn, like fine linen.
“The gold is in the tomb of Osiris,” she said.
Hapure sat back on his heels, the clay game chips in his hand. He watched Sennahet’s face. Sennahet’s eyes had narrowed, piercing as a hawk’s.
“I need no one to tell me that,” he said to Meryat. “All Egypt knows that.”
“You need me,” she said, “to tell you that there is a guard by night, and to help you distract him.”
Hapure clinked the counters together in his cupped hand. His stomach turned over. He saw that the thing they had long discussed was becoming real; he saw it in Sennahet’s face.
Sennahet rose up from his place. “Tonight,” he said.
It was in Hapure’s mouth to refuse. Crouched on his heels, he lifted his eyes to Sennahet’s, and Sennahet seemed tall as the Sun. Alone of all men he had purpose, and it sanctified him.
“Come,” he said to Hapure and Meryat, and they followed him.
They gathered up Hapure’s tools. The sun was lowering toward the western shelf of the desert, there to begin the perilous journey through the underworld of night. In the village the women were cooking beans and millet together. With the tools on Hapure’s shoulder, the three friends set off from the village on the path that led to the Royal Gorge.
Hapure walked first, because he knew the path best and the sun would set in the midst of their journey. He heard the others coming after him but he did not speak to them. None of them spoke. It was like a dream, what they were doing.
Hapure looked up from the path and saw the sun upon the horizon like a caldron of molten gold that tipped and spread the burning color all along the edge of the world. The path turned downward under his feet and he led his friends down into a little dip in the desert where the shadows were already dark and the night had come early.
The darkness fell over them. They went down the steep slope in the wall of the Royal Gorge. In the chill Hapure shivered and could not stop shivering.
Sennahet murmured, “Where is the guard?”
Meryat pointed ahead of them. “I shall go,” she said, “and see what might tempt him away from his duty.”
“What?” Sennahet asked her.
“I have gold,” she said, “and if that fails, I have honey in a secret jar.”
Hapure averted his face from her. She was too delicately bred to speak like that.
She went away down the gorge. She walked down the middle of the narrow valley with the two steep walls on either side of her like the pillars of a temple. She grew smaller with each step until she was only a white grain that walked between the raw pillars of the desert.
“This is unlucky,” Hapure said. “I feel that we shall not succeed in this.”
“You are a fool,” Sennahet said. “There is no luck. There is no god. There is only what a man might seize with the force of his arms and the wit of his brain.”
Hapu
re did not reply to that.
They waited there for more than three hours, until the moon was coursing high in the black sky. Then Meryat returned.
“He is asleep,” she said. “Now, come.”
She seemed no different, her clothes unrumpled, and her arms as smooth as wax; her face was smooth, as if what she had done could not touch her. She led them down through the gorge, and they came into the widened part of the gorge where the King was buried.
A stairway led down into the hard rock of the earth. At its foot the door was blocked with stones covered with plaster. Hapure took his mallet and a chisel. With the mallet he tapped at the plaster. It crumbled and fell in sheets of dry plaster and crumbs of still-damp plaster, and he scraped it away from the top of the doorway.
His heart began to pound hard. He hastened, and Sennahet came to help him. They pounded wedges into the cracks between the stones that filled the wall and worked loose the topmost stone.
“That is too small a space,” Hapure said. “We shall have to remove another.”
“No,” Meryat said. “There isn’t enough time. I can fit through a smaller space than you.”
“You are mad,” Hapure said roughly. “A woman—”
“You do not know what a woman can do,” she said.
They set to work again, all three of them. The passageway beyond the door was full of small stones and pebbles and earth. They dug through it, making a tunnel back toward the tomb. Hapure dug as much as he could reach, but then Meryat had to climb within and dig her own way through. Hapure and Sennahet cleared away the dirt she cast out behind her. They carried it up to the top of the stairs.
They tied a rope to the sack where Hapure carried his tools, and gave it to her, and she took it into the tunnel. She heaped up the dirt she was removing onto the sack and the two men pulled it out. The dirt showered down over them; Hapure’s arms and shoulders were caked with dirt and bruised from the stones. At last Meryat put her head out of the tunnel.
“I have come to another doorway,” she said.
Hapure and Sennahet looked at each other. That was the way into the tomb.
“Here.” Sennahet stooped for the mallet and the chisel. “Can you open it? You saw how the mason did it.”
She took the tools. Her face was stained now; what she was doing could not leave her clean. Her eyes were wide in the moonlight. She looked blind, like a mole whose lifetime is spent underground. She disappeared down the tunnel.
Hapure leaned against the doorway and brushed the dirt from his arms. Foul thoughts swarmed in his idle mind. He could not meet the gaze of Sennahet, who stood so unconcerned before him.
Deep inside the slope, something fell with a crash.
“She is through,” Sennahet said.
Hapure licked his lips. He pressed his hand over his heart, which seemed ready to break through his ribs.
Then suddenly Meryat’s hands thrust out of the opening in the doorway, and a shower of gold cascaded down over the two men. Laughing, she put her head out after it.
“There! Take it—take it—there is more—so much—” Her head popped back inside the tunnel and she was gone.
Sennahet whooped; he crouched and gathered up the gold and scampered around the corner steps over the loose dirt and stones picking up the stray bits. Hapure stooped down to reach a shining thing on the bottom step. It was a ring. The image of the scarab was cut into the stone. His fingers clenched around it. Now the madness took him. With Sennahet he scurried about hunting for the bits of gold.
Another wild laugh issued from the mouth of the tunnel and more gold streamed down around them, tinkling on the rocks.
Hapure tore off his garment; he formed it into a sack and began to pile the jewels inside. In his haste he gathered up stones as well, and chunks of earth. He collided with Sennahet and they both fell.
“Don’t steal my gold!” Sennahet cried. He lashed out at Hapure with his clawed hand.
Hapure was already lunging across the ground for a thing that winked in the moonlight. Meryat’s voice sounded above his head and a cup bounced down on the rocks before him, and he seized it.
His sack was so heavy that he could lift it only with both hands. He slung it over his shoulder.
“Let’s go,” he said. “I have enough.”
Sennahet nodded. He put his head into the tunnel. “Meryat. Meryat.”
The girl’s voice answered, the words indistinct.
“Come out. We are going now—we must hurry.”
“No,” she called. “No, I will stay here a while longer, with my love.”
Hapure startled at her words. She was mad—he should have guessed it, from the strange calm on her face.
“Come out, Meryat. The guard will return.”
“I will stay here,” she said, from deep inside the earth.
Hapure started away, his sack on his shoulder. Already they had spent too long on this work, which should be done as fast as possible. Behind him Sennahet was arguing with Meryat.
Sennahet came after him, grumbling, his loot wrapped in his skirt. They went off down the gorge.
“Hurry,” said Hapure. “Before the guard comes.”
“Oh, the guard will sleep until dawn,” Sennahet said. “It is only that I can carry no more.”
He was struggling with the great weight of his goods. They reached the foot of the path back to the village and he set down his bundle with a sigh.
“I must rest.”
Hapure lowered his sack to the earth. He cast a long searching look about them. The gorge was still and barren in the moonlight. The top of the cliff stood out sharp against the sky. The moon was still riding well above the horizon.
“Here.” Sennahet opened his bundle and spilled out the heap of loot that he had taken. Hastily he covered it over with loose dirt. A cup rolled away; he kicked it under a rock. “I am going back for more.” Shaking out his skirt, he hurried away down the gorge.
“Sennahet!” Hapure cried.
His friend disappeared around a bend in the gorge.
Hapure stood there awhile, staring after Sennahet. He thought of going back to the village; he would have to hide his loot before daybreak, when the other villagers would waken. He was tired and longed for sleep. He was hungry. But he did not move; he waited for Sennahet to appear. Finally he started down the gorge after his friend.
While he was walking along the gorge the soldiers came.
He saw them from a distance. They had come out along the desert so that their chariots would not give warning of their presence, and then they had climbed on foot down the cliff, and Hapure saw them climbing on the cliff. He turned and took flight. They swarmed after him. He wondered if they were real men, or demons loosed on him, a swarm from hell. In his terror he heard the flapping of their leathery wings. He raced up the path, but they caught him there, and a blow struck between his shoulders, and he fell. He knew no more.
The sun rose. Sennahet stretched his legs, cramped from sitting so long. He could not stretch his arms, which were bound behind him.
Meryat sat beside him. They were sitting near the wall of the gorge and the rising sun drove his rays like poisoned arrows into their eyes.
Around them there were many soldiers. None of the soldiers spoke or looked at them. The only voices were the voices of the priests, down at the foot of the stairway inspecting the damage that had been done within the tomb and to the doorway of the tomb. Now the voices sounded clearer and the priests began to climb back up the steps from the doorway of the tomb. They came up to the surface of the gorge, dusting their hands and shaking their heads.
Sennahet did not try to beg them for mercy. He sat still in his place. Beside him Meryat was singing to herself.
On the other side of the gorge were men digging a pit. The dirt and stone they dug up they flung into the stairway of the tomb
. They would bury it, to hide it from other robbers. The rhythmic grinding of the shovels in the earth rang on the walls of the gorge. The priests walked up and down past the tomb, talking and casting looks of indignation at the tomb robbers.
Meryat sang, rocking herself back and forth. Sennahet did not speak; he did not move.
At last the pit was finished. The priests stood back, and the workmen stood back, and the soldiers cut away the bonds that held Sennahet and Meryat and threw the man and the woman down together into the pit. A few moments later Hapure’s dead body was flung in with them.
The soldiers and the priests and workmen went away. Meryat sat in the corner of the pit; but now she did not sing. From the sleeve of her robe she took a knife, so thin and fine she had concealed it even from the priests who bound her, and she put the knife to her breast. The blood welled up from her breast. She put her head back against the wall of the pit and shut her eyes.
Sennahet sat still a long while, until he was sure that no one had waited on the surface of the gorge. He chuckled. He had fooled them to the last. Carefully he unwound his loincloth. He had hidden gold and jewels from them. They had not found what he had stolen; he had stolen it all away. He held the baubles in his hands, smiling. Now at last what he had sought was in his hands.
He sat there in the pit, laughing now and then. The bodies of his friends lay nearby. Truly the priests had given him choice meats for his eternal house. He laughed again, fingering his priceless gold.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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