Secrets of a Sun King

by Emma Carroll

  ‘Keep up, Mother!’ I hold out my hand to her. She laughs as she stumbles, then catches hold of me again.

  In the marketplace the stalls have been pushed aside. The road is wide, dipping gently down to the river. Up ahead, blocking the route, is a heap of rubble. Not so long ago it was a statue to the old god Aten. Now it’s a hazard. Kyky throws all his weight to one side. The chariot swerves just in time to avoid it.

  Maya, lumbering behind, does the same move. His weight is greater. I cry out as his chariot tips. One wheel leaves the ground, then, magically, it is righted again. I think I’ve squeezed all the blood from Mother’s hand.

  By the time the chariots reach the river, we’ve lost sight of them. Mother and I, and most of the crowd, walk back to the palace where the race will finish. Every now and then, we hear a distant cheer, a groan.

  It’s frustrating not to see what’s happening. At first people are impatient, standing on tiptoe. But as time passes, the crowd settles again. In the middle of the street, doves peck the dirt. A hungry dog, who’s been watching them, lies down and goes to sleep.

  I start to worry. It can’t take this long to gallop around our town. Something must have gone wrong. I go over Kyky’s dream again, the darkness, the wild animals, and feel that same coldness in my veins.

  Mother nudges me: ‘Look.’

  On the palace steps, Horemheb is pointing in the direction of the temple.

  ‘They return!’ he bellows. ‘Everyone stand back!’

  Eager to catch first sight of them, we press to the sides of the road. I can hear hoofbeats now. I’m excited again. On tiptoe, straining to see.

  In the distance I hear rumbling chariot wheels. There’s dust in the air, coming towards us like a sandstorm. Shouts. The smell of sweating horses. The doves fly up in panic. The dog awakes and skulks off into the crowd.

  The road is empty. Then it isn’t.

  It’s Maya I see first. He’s crouched forwards, almost touching Bes and Beetle’s rumps. Kyky isn’t far behind. Soon he’s level with Maya again. By the time they reach us, they’re at full gallop. All I see is a blur of speed: brown horses, brown chariots, brown dust. The finish line is just ahead. Up on the palace steps, Horemheb gets ready to bang his gong.

  The dust clears enough to see Kyky edge ahead. Maya’s horses are tiring. He makes a show of urging them on, but the race is over. The king’s going to win. We all laugh with delight. There’s cheering and clapping.

  Then comes an almighty crash. The sound of splintering wood. A stunned silence because we all know this isn’t meant to happen. People start screaming. The whole crowd pushes and heaves in different directions.

  ‘Is someone hurt?’ Mother cries.

  I’m almost too terrified to look.

  There’s a chariot on its side in the road. Two horses are struggling to get up. When I realise they’re not Bes and Beetle, I sob with relief. But if it’s not Maya, then it must be Kyky.

  ‘No, Lysandra, stay back,’ Mother pleads.

  I squirm free of her grasp, reaching the broken chariot just as Maya does. Kyky has been thrown from the vehicle. He lies some distance away, face down in the dust. People are crowding around him now, unsure what to do or whether to move him.

  No order comes from the palace steps. Ay hasn’t got up from his seat. Horemheb is at his shoulder, talking angrily to him.

  It’s Maya who gives the orders.

  ‘Take him inside,’ he says to the strongest-looking people in the crowd. ‘Be careful of his head and leg.’

  As Kyky is lifted up, the injuries are clear. His leg is at an odd angle. There’s a gash on his head. But his eyes are opening: he’s alive!

  Sinking to my knees to thank the gods, I see the chariot wheel, lying in the dirt. I wonder why no one else has noticed it. Two spokes are broken. The whole thing is buckled beyond repair.

  I was there this morning when Roti checked everything, then checked it all again. He wouldn’t have missed damage like this. He wouldn’t put the king’s life at risk.

  No, he wouldn’t, I think, my gaze resting on the palace steps, but there are those who would. If the pharaoh dies, Ay is the next living male heir. This, I think bitterly, means Kyky is worth more to his ambitious godfather dead than alive.

  The healing ladies spend the next day tending to Kyky. From our house we see pots and baskets carried in – fresh incense, linens, herbs and potions. The more I think about how the right wheel sheared off, the more certain I am it was deliberate. Ay, keen to place blame, has already found his target. Poor Roti was dragged from the stables last night and beaten with his own horsewhip.

  Maya brings us news as we’re closing the shutters against the midday sun. He confirms my thoughts. ‘Kyky’s head wound is deep – to the bone. They’ve bound up his leg in case it’s fractured. He’s very lucky – he could’ve been killed.’

  Maya’s one of the few allowed at Kyky’s bedside. It’s not nearly as much fun as hurling pomegranates or hunting ostrich, but he shows equal devotion to it.

  ‘He’s blessed to have such a friend,’ I say.

  ‘He’s asking for you, Lysandra.’

  Mama stares. I’m suddenly chilled. I’m certain he wants to talk more about his dream.

  Kyky’s bedchamber is in the coolest part of the palace. It catches the breeze from the river, and facing north-east it gets only the earliest rays of sun.

  Kyky is awake. His eyes are night-dark from the medicine he’s taken, though I’m not sure if it’s helping much. He’s fidgety and irritable.

  ‘Leave us!’ he tells the healing ladies who crouch at the edges of the room.

  Kyky doesn’t speak again until he’s very sure we’re alone, and even then he lowers his voice. I wonder who he thinks might be out there, eavesdropping. It’s not hard to guess.

  ‘Lysandra, the conversation we had – about my dream,’ Kyky says. ‘You haven’t told anyone, have you?’

  ‘Just Maya,’ I reply, who probably knew about it before I did.

  ‘Good. I don’t want people to think me weak.’

  ‘Weak?’ I’m startled. So is Maya when I catch his eye. ‘There’s no taint in dream reading. It’s a tradition as old as the hills—’

  Kyky interrupts: ‘A window into the afterlife, yes, I know what it means, but everyone assumes I’m dying.’

  ‘You told me the door in your dream was closed,’ I remind him. ‘You’re not ready for that journey yet.’

  ‘Ah! But I came close to it yesterday, didn’t I?’

  There are parts of his dream that concern me, yes. He is in danger from something. Or someone.

  ‘Perhaps yesterday wasn’t an accident, after all,’ I confess.

  Kyky frowns. ‘The stable boy was slack in his work, so I heard.’

  ‘It wasn’t his fault,’ I argue. ‘He checked your chariot before the race and there was nothing wrong. Someone else must’ve tampered with it.’

  I glance at Maya, hoping he’ll agree. But he’s pacing the room, as alert as a snake. He stops in front of one of the windows, gestures for us to be quiet. I hold my breath as he listens at the shutters, then flings them open in one swift movement. We all hear the patter of feet as whoever was out there listening runs away.

  ‘Kyky’s right,’ Maya says. ‘No more talk of dreams.’

  We don’t talk of the accident again, either. By the time the moon’s waned, Kyky’s hobbling around the palace as if nothing happened. He’s cut himself a new walking stick to mark the occasion. Word is he’s also trying to show more interest in the running of the kingdom. I wonder what Ay and Horemheb make of this change.

  One night in the orange glow of Mama’s cooking fire, Maya takes me aside to tell me the new arrangement isn’t going well.

  ‘They don’t listen to him,’ he confesses. ‘All the decisions still come from Ay or Horemheb. When they can’t agree, they bribe Kyky for his support.’

  ‘But you’re there at these meetings. Can’t you speak up for him?’ I as
k.

  ‘I won’t be there any more. From tomorrow, I’ve been ordered out into the desert to find a site for Kyky’s tomb.’

  This worries me. ‘Is he sick again?’

  Maya shakes his head. ‘He’s healing well. But Ay says we should’ve started work on it years ago. It takes time and sweat to build a tomb fit for a pharaoh.’

  This is true: Kyky’s mother, father and beloved grandmother all have lavish golden chambers hewn from the desert floor. Their journeys onward to the next life will have been comfortable. Easy. Maya’s right to want the same luxuries for Kyky.

  Yet I can’t shake off the fact that Ay is behind this. The wayward chariot wheel, ears pressed to window shutters, the building of a grave. Nothing is what it seems.

  After a few days of searching, Maya finds the perfect site for the tomb. He comes home at sundown, exhausted but thrilled.

  ‘What’s it like, the spot you’ve picked?’ I ask.

  ‘I’ll take you,’ he says to my surprise.

  Mother insists I wear sandals because of scorpions or snakes. I don’t like anything on my feet, but for this it’s a small price to pay. Since Kyky’s dream I’ve been wary of anything with a poisonous bite.

  Beyond the city wall the desert stretches in all directions. We go west, heading towards a place where river waters used to run. Nowadays, it’s a dry valley, the sides of which are almost sheer rock. I know the spot well – it’s only a short walk from Thebes. It is where people of power and prestige are taken after death to begin their journey to the world beyond.

  Maya walks with huge, raking strides. I keep asking him to slow down. We slither down a path, already worn into the hillside by the men working with Maya.

  ‘Which way?’ I ask, when we reach the point where the valley divides.

  ‘East,’ Maya replies.

  I’m surprised: west-facing graves are more favoured because they catch the setting sun.

  After a steep climb, the tomb site comes into view. It’s a few hundred feet up the cliff face, set back from the edge. Ropes and baskets and other signs of work litter the ground below. Already they’ve made good progress – I can see steps cut from the rock. The view out over the valley is magnificent. I’m proud of my thoughtful brother. This is a beautiful place to be at rest. My brother is smiling, though, shaking his head as though I’ve not quite understood.

  ‘It’s only the beginning,’ he says. ‘If my measurements are correct then the real beauty will come from the sun.’

  PART THREE

  The shadows move but the dark is never completely dispersed.

  HOWARD CARTER, ARCHAEOLOGIST

  8

  That night in bed my brain kept whizzing. You did it, Lil, I told myself. You found the translation. But it wasn’t the end of the story, was it? There was no mention of how Kyky died, or his funeral or the burial, which made me think there was still more to this account, even now.

  Then there was the curse. Kyky’s injuries from the chariot accident were too similar to those of the Washington Post’s reporter who’d crashed his car. Head injuries, fractured legs – it was no coincidence. Anyone with a special interest in the Tutankhamun story seemed to be at risk from the curse. And that included us.

  I lay there, my heart booming, thinking this over. At least the translation did give us a better idea of where Kyky’s tomb might be. The accounts of Mr Carter’s dig said his search was on the valley floor, yet Maya’s chosen place was high up in the rock face. It suggested two tombs, then, not one.

  It was bizarre to think Mr Carter himself didn’t know this. But then, didn’t the professor say that Mr Carter had dismissed the jar as ‘insignificant’ all those years ago?

  He’d be kicking himself now.

  Yet as far as the newspapers were concerned, he was already a national hero. Which made me remember something Grandad said:

  ‘They called King Louis XIV of France the Sun King because of how important he thought he was. His mission in life? To dazzle everyone. Yet don’t forget, Lily, underneath those wigs and gold brocade, he was just a man with flat feet and bad breath. That Howard Carter, he’s like a sun king. Everyone thinks he’s a go-getting explorer, but he’s a sly one, mark my words. He’s got secrets by the bagful.’

  *

  I wondered how Mr Carter managed to keep his secrets to himself. All weekend I tried my very best to keep our plans secret. But by Sunday it was getting exhausting.

  ‘What’s wrong with that last spud, Lil?’ Dad asked as we ate our roast lunch.

  ‘Nothing.’ I shoved it in my mouth quick before he could pinch it. I mean, it was a very decent lunch. We had lamb, potatoes done in lard, carrots, tinned peas and gravy thick as treacle. Mum was good at roasts, but this one was especially nice, almost as if we were celebrating something. Even I, with my head full of Egypt, couldn’t fail to notice.

  When lunch was finished, I went down to swill our dishes under the tap in the back yard, and when I came upstairs again, Mum and Dad were discussing me. Since the kitchen door was ajar, I hovered there to listen.

  ‘She could come with us, Reg,’ Mum was saying. ‘It might be nice to do it as a family this year.’

  ‘What about her schoolwork?’ Dad replied. ‘St Kilda’s won’t tolerate her falling behind. I wonder sometimes if she realises just how lucky she is?’

  I groaned. St Kilda’s again. The work I had to do, the gratitude I was expected to show. Dad never seemed to talk about anything else.

  Except then he said, ‘We agreed never to tell her, remember?’

  ‘She’s older now,’ Mum pointed out.

  I was all ears: what were they on about? It didn’t sound like St Kilda’s any more.

  The kitchen door opened fully. Dad came out, saw me and for a second looked almost lost.

  ‘There you are!’ he said, forcing a smile. His hands were shaking badly. Seeing I’d noticed he quickly stuffed them in his pockets.

  ‘Dishes are done,’ I muttered.

  ‘Good girl. Your mother and I are popping out for a stroll, all right? It’s best that you stay here and get your prep done.’

  *

  The second my parents left, I slumped face down amongst my schoolbooks. I couldn’t concentrate. I was now anxious about where they’d gone. They never went out together. Dad went to the pub on a Friday evening and once a month Mum played cribbage with her work pals from Woolworths: that was it.

  The only thing I could think was that they’d gone to visit Grandad, though it seemed unlikely. Grandad and Dad couldn’t bear to be in the same room as each other. That made me worry even more. If they had gone to the hospital, then it must be for the very worst reason, that Grandad was dying and Dad had gone to settle their differences.

  On the brink of tears, I got up and put on my coat. If Grandad was that ill then I had to see him too. He must know I was trying my very hardest to get the jar back to Egypt, with my friends’ help. If he could just hang on for a few more days, he’d see – though how I’d say all this with Mum and Dad at the bedside I’d no idea.

  *

  In the street, I soon spotted my parents. I was about to run to catch them up when I realised they’d passed the bus stop. They weren’t going to the hospital, after all. What relief I felt quickly turned to confusion, because they were certainly going somewhere.

  Swithin’s Street itself was busy with kids out on their bikes or playing hopscotch on the pavement. After weeks of cold weather, it was a bright, warm day. There were people chatting on doorsteps, a couple of cats stretched out on a wall in the sunshine. It was, all told, a nice afternoon for a stroll.

  Yet my parents weren’t strolling. Dad was going so fast Mum kept having to break into a run to stay with him. And so did I, as I followed on behind. Just when I could feel a stitch coming on, Dad turned down St Mary’s Lane, a little road that ran behind the cutlery factory, before it stopped in a dead end at the churchyard and convent.

  We never went to church as a family. Once, wh
en I’d asked why not, Dad replied: ‘Passchendaele. No god would’ve let that happen.’

  Today, though, my parents were heading for St Mary’s. They had to be. There was nothing else down there. It was a funny little place. Jammed in by the factory wall on one side and the convent on the other, it had the greenest, most overgrown graveyard you ever saw. Long ago, during the Black Death, it’d been a plague pit. Nowadays, it was where you’d see couples on their break from the factory having a quick smoke or a kiss. As far as I knew, neither of these was a reason for my parents to go there. Nor was the obvious one: all the dead people in our family were buried at the big cemetery near the Heath.

  By the time I reached St Mary’s, they were already in the churchyard. Dad had slowed down and was reaching out to take Mum’s hand, making me realise they wanted to be alone. So I hid behind the gatepost.

  On either side of the path were ancient gravestones that had fallen over in the long grass or sunk into the soil. I was dying to see which one Mum and Dad would stop in front of. Perhaps an army chum of Dad’s was buried here. You often heard about men who’d returned from the war, who despite being back home with their families never recovered from their injuries.

  Not too far along the path, they did stop. Mum said something to Dad, who took off his hat and held it to his chest. Then he spoke to her – I couldn’t hear what he said, above the blackbirds and trams going by on the main road and someone in a nearby garden calling to their cat.

  The strange thing was, neither of them seemed to be looking down at a grave. They were gazing straight ahead at the long whitewashed wall, behind which was the convent. Standing there, they looked different: not their usual weary selves, but so full of emotion they were shaking with it. And it frightened me, rather. I’d never seen them react like this to anything, or anyone, before.

  They didn’t stay long. On the way out, when they passed my hiding spot, I froze in case they saw me. But they were so lost to their thoughts that neither of them even looked up from the path. All the way back down Swithin’s Street, they walked in silence. I followed at a safe distance.