The Season of the Hyaena (Ancient Egyptian Mysteries)

by Paul Doherty

  ‘What is it, boy?’

  He was dirty-faced, his black hair so greased it stood in spikes. When he moved, his filthy tunic gave off the reek of the alleyways. He was dancing up and down before me as if he was waiting for someone to go, and kept looking down the avenue in the direction I had come. I noticed the piece of copper in one hand, the glint of silver in the other.

  ‘I am busy,’ I growled. I went to move on, but he danced with me. I raised my cudgel. ‘What is it, lad?’

  ‘He said to give you this.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘The man said I should give you this. He said you would remember.’ The boy screwed up his eyes. ‘Yes, he said you would remember.’ He looked directly at me. ‘He said you would give me a gift, you were always kind. You know what it’s like to be a boy like myself.’

  I opened my purse and took out a small piece of jasper, which glowed like fire. I had intended to give it to the Prince. I stretched out my hand, and the boy grasped the jasper and gave me the copper piece. At first I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. I stared in astonishment, and I felt a chill as if the evening had turned cold. The piece of copper was an amulet, burnished until it glittered, depicting the sign of the Aten, the Sun Disc rising in glory between the two eternal peaks. The symbol of the God Akenhaten had worshipped, the reason he had chosen the City of the Aten, where the sun rose above the limestone cliffs to bathe his new foundation in its glorious light. The symbol which had changed all Egypt and fed the fires of revolution.

  I staggered, swaying on my feet, half raising my cudgel as if expecting an attack. Although the amulet was polished, I could tell it was years old, beginning to fade from years of rubbing. I was aware of a roaring in my ears as if surrounded by a vast invisible crowd. I closed my eyes to steady myself. Akenhaten was there with his long, solemn face, those almond-shaped eyes, pointed ears, a smile on his thick protuberant lips. Behind him, like a vision in the night, Nefertiti, his Queen, holder of my heart, her gorgeous hair billowing out, blue eyes sparkling with mischief. I opened my eyes. The boy had disappeared.

  ‘Are you well? Are you well?’

  I spun round to face the speaker. He was one of those travelling magicians, a warlock, a conjuror, his steel-grey hair parted down the middle to frame a sunburnt face, eyes glittering, lips open to reveal yellowing teeth. A necklace of bone circled his neck, a stained giraffe skin hung round his shoulders and a skirt of leather stretched down to his knees. Around his bulging stomach was a leather belt with pouches carrying the tools of his trade. A small, wizened man with a youthful face. I went to grasp his shoulder but he retreated, laughing under his breath.

  ‘Are you concerned, my lord Mahu? Are you wondering now? Whom do you search for?’

  I raised the cudgel, but he flung out his hand, fingers splayed, muttering a curse in a language I didn’t understand.

  ‘Don’t use your cudgel, my lord Mahu. The people will not like it.’

  Already passers-by were stopping, staring curiously at us.

  ‘I am just a poor beggar man,’ he whined.

  I felt sick to my stomach. ‘What is it that you want?’

  ‘The boy has a piece of jasper,’ the warlock replied, ‘so we have been paid enough. Our message is very clear.’

  ‘What message?’ I demanded. I wanted to sit down. I wanted to know what was happening. ‘Who sent you?’

  ‘The Veiled One,’ he whispered.

  Now I had to crouch down, my heart was beating so fast.

  ‘The Veiled One?’

  The warlock closed his eyes.

  Splendid are you against the heaven’s light,

  Oh Living Aten, creator of life

  When you rise in the eastern highlands,

  You fill every cloud with your beauty.

  You are magnificent, great and radiant.

  ‘Very good, very good,’ I murmured. ‘So you know the hymn to the Aten. But if I were you I wouldn’t sing it too loud here. You say the Veiled One sent you, but I tell you, the Veiled One is dead. Akenhaten is no more.’

  ‘Did the sun rise this morning?’ the warlock replied. ‘Will he not set tonight? Will he not sustain the light in the darkness? Does he not show his magnificence to everyone? So, how can you say he dies? No man dies, Mahu. The Aten is the God of the living, not the dead. In the eyes of the Aten, no man dies.’

  ‘Is Akenhaten dead?’ I edged closer. ‘Did he truly send you?’

  ‘Is Akenhaten dead?’ the warlock whispered back. He stretched out swiftly and touched my chest before I could flinch. ‘Has he died here, Mahu? Here, in your heart?’

  ‘Whoever has sent you,’ I replied, as the warlock edged away, ‘tell him that in my heart, no one dies. But why trouble us now? Why leave us in the first place?’

  ‘A soul has to be purified,’ the warlock replied. ‘Look around at the glory of Memphis, Mahu, and weep, for one day it will be no more. Keep your promise. Keep your promise to your master.’

  ‘About the Prince?’ I pleaded.

  ‘Keep your promise,’ the warlock repeated, nodding his head.

  He scurried away as swift as a monkey. I called out, but he became lost in the crowd. I rose to my feet and stared up at the sky. In a few heartbeats all my past seemed to come rushing back along that busy avenue: ghosts and memories were never far from the caverns of my soul, ever ready to haunt my heart. The Veiled One! I had given Akenhaten that name when I had first met him when he was a prince, kept hidden from public view by his father, who regarded him as a misshapen grotesque, an abomination in the eyes of men. I had met him out in the woods of the Malkata Palace, worshipping the rising sun …

  I was acting so strangely, a kind peasant woman seized my hand, her direct eyes red-rimmed from the dust.

  ‘Are you well, sir?’

  I fumbled for my purse and handed over the last piece of silver I carried, muttering that it was nothing. I went across to a narrow beer house erected in the shade of a date palm tree. I shouted at the owner that I was Lord Mahu and the palace would pay. The poor man, frightened out of his wits, handed me a cracked earthenware jug and provided a tawdry stool for me to sit on. I crouched and waited for the shock to pass. It was like the clash of battle, arrows winging out of the curling dust. Akenhaten! Years ago, when we had first met, he had given me a similar amulet as a token of favour, a gesture he had often repeated in the early days of our friendship. My heart calmed. I turned the amulet over and over as all the possibilities came rushing in. Had it been sent by Akenhaten? Was he truly alive? Had he slipped back into the city to see justice done to the usurper? What did the warlock mean by a soul being purified? There were so many explanations. Had Akenhaten been poisoned by his wife and family? Or by Meryre? Had he slipped into madness and gone out into the Red Lands to die? Had he been killed there? Or had he found a certain form of peace, escaping into the darkness to live out his years? He had only reached his mid-thirties when his reign ended after seventeen years. Had Akenhaten drunk too deeply of the cup and sickened of what he had seen? Yet how could he desert his throne? Give up the two crowns? Forget the vision? Ignore his son? And why had he sent this amulet to me? And the warlock?

  I put the beer jug down and rubbed the amulet in my hand. Perhaps it wasn’t a question of power. Perhaps Akenhaten had recalled the intimacy of our youth when he and I had been close friends, two lonely boys bereft of their parents, he being rejected by his father whilst I was happy that I had escaped the malign influence of that witch woman, my Aunt Isithia. So, had he come back for one more glance and glimpsed me in the chariot? I picked up the beer jug. It held very sweet date wine. I sipped carefully. Or was it all part of some subtle plan? A devious ploy by Ay, Meryre or some other hyaena in the pack?

  ‘My lord Mahu?’

  I glanced up. Three figures stood black against the sky; I caught a glimpse of gold, the flash of light from beringed fingers.

  ‘My lord Mahu.’ Nakhtimin raised his hand and snapped his fingers for the beer
shop owner to bring a stool. He sat down, and the two colonels from his regiment stood slightly back. I hadn’t met them before, yet I recognised the menace in the way they stood, far enough away not to hear but close enough to intervene.

  ‘My lord Mahu?’

  ‘That’s the third time you’ve said that, General Nakhtimin.’ I toasted him with the jug.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I was thinking, General Nakhtimin, about hyaenas. How savage and cunning they can be.’

  Nakhtimin’s lip curled like a dog’s. He was not as good-looking as his brother Ay, or as cunning, but I’d always recognised him as a man of blood. A bland-faced man, except for those eyes, ever shifting, and that tongue, which would come out to wet his lips. He reminded me of a lizard basking in the sun. A man I would have employed as a spy, of little personality, with a face you could easily forget. Nevertheless, for all his appearance, a dangerous member of the hyaena pack. He reminded me of General Rameses without the latter’s deviousness or arrogant charm. A man who would kill and kill again for the glory of the Akhmin gang and the advancement of his beloved brother. An elegant dresser; in many ways a court fop, with his embroidered linen robes and dazzling, gorgeous rings on every finger. A bracelet of jasper round his left wrist always gave his hands the tint of red, as if constantly stained with blood.

  ‘Hyaenas, my lord Mahu? What on earth are you doing in a beer shop by yourself? Do you think you are safe?’

  ‘I am, like you, General Nakhtimin, a man of blood.’

  He drew his brows together.

  ‘And we men of blood are kept close to the Hand of God so he can use us for his own secret purposes.’

  ‘Which God, Lord Mahu?’

  I clinked my beer cup against his. ‘Any God you choose, General Nakhtimin. You name it and I’ll sing a hymn to it.’

  ‘Are you drunk?’

  ‘No, I am just feeling rather angry at being followed by the likes of you. The Lord Ay does not need to do that.’

  One of the colonels stepped closer.

  ‘Tell your mastiffs to back off.’

  Nakhtimin raised a hand, fingers fluttering. The two colonels walked away.

  ‘We are not following you, Lord Mahu, though I saw you pause by that boy and the warlock. We tried to stop the boy but,’ Nakhtimin wiped his hand on his robe, ‘his skin was soaked in oil, slippery as an eel fish from the river. What did he want?’

  ‘He asked me to give his regards to your mother.’

  Nakhtimin blinked, wetting his lips. ‘We were searching for you, my lord Mahu. Oh, by the way, is it true General Rameses had the red-haired bitch? He was boasting how agile she was in bed, anything to please.’

  ‘General Rameses’ sexual habits are not my concern. You were talking about searching for me?’

  ‘Lord Ay,’ Nakhtimin sipped at his beer but spat it out, shouting at the man to bring some palm wine, the best he had, ‘Lord Ay now wonders whether it was prudent to bring the usurper into Memphis and on to Thebes. Perhaps we should have buried him and his bitch out in the Red Lands?’

  ‘If we all had hindsight, General Nakhtimin, you would be the wisest of us all.’

  ‘You don’t like me, Mahu, do you?’

  ‘You flatter yourself, General. I don’t even think of you.’

  He swallowed hard and hung his head, staring down at the ground strewn with freshly crushed dates. He glanced up.

  ‘Why?’ he whispered. ‘I have always admired you, Mahu. You are like my brother. You have very few principles, but those you have, you follow.’

  ‘And you, General Nakhtimin?’

  ‘I have no principles at all, my lord Mahu. Like you, I wonder if I have a soul.’ He blinked and stared away.

  I was intrigued. Did the others feel what I felt? Horemheb, Rameses, Maya and Huy? Were we all lost in this frenetic dream of power, and, once part of it, unable to escape?

  ‘I did not mean to insult you, General Nakhtimin.’

  ‘No offence taken.’ Nakhtimin smiled. ‘It’s just that my brother keeps saying that I should not be like him but more like you. Now, the reason I was searching for you? The news is all over Memphis, guards have been posted at every gate. Akenhaten has been seen in the city!’

  I kept my face impassive, clutching the amulet tighter.

  ‘But that’s nonsense,’ I whispered. ‘You know that’s bound to happen, General Nakhtimin. We’ll have sightings from him as far west as Libya and as far north as the land of the barbarians. He will be seen on board ship, on the Great Green, driving a chariot across the Horus Road or parading in glory through some city of Canaan. He’ll come back to haunt us.’

  ‘This is different.’ Nakhtimin shook his head. ‘He was seen by no less a person than Colonel Nebamun. He had taken a squadron beyond the Purple Gate on the road leading north. Do you remember those mercenaries who attacked his mansion? Well, some of them fled. After the victory parade Nebamun heard that they were hiding out in a village on the borders of the western Red Lands. Now, Nebamun regarded the attack on his house as a personal affront. Whilst you were all busy in the Delta, he had this city searched for any fugitives. General Horemheb had to almost shake him by the neck to make him think about something else. If Nebamun hadn’t been pursuing his own feud, those regiments would have moved a day earlier.’

  ‘And?’ I asked.

  ‘Anyway, after the victory parade, Nebamun continued the hunt. He and his squadron stopped to rest the horses and take on some water. A group of pilgrims passed by, travelling north, on their way to Bubastis. They were carrying a sacred statue of a cat. You know how these pilgrims are dedicated to their own cult: singing hymns and chanting songs. They stopped by the well to draw water. They were excited by what they had seen in Memphis and were discussing it amongst themselves. Nebamun drifted over to inspect the statue of the Goddess Bastet, which was accompanied by two priests, one short, the other very tall. Each had a mask of a cat concealing his face. Nebamun ignored them and the procession moved on.’

  ‘So, he didn’t see their faces?’

  ‘Ah, but he did. One of the pilgrims offered the priests water. They removed their masks to drink. Nebamun glimpsed a face, a strange chest and wide hips, but thought nothing of it. Only when the pilgrims had passed did he reflect on what he had seen, and the more he remembered, the more certain he became that the man he had glimpsed was Akenhaten, former Pharaoh of Egypt.’

  ‘Did he set off in pursuit?’

  ‘Of course he did. But you see, he had left the road, stopping at the village to conduct his own search, and when he caught up with the pilgrims he found the priest in question had disappeared. He was informed that the priest had forgotten something precious and returned to Memphis. Nebamun was convinced that this priest, our former Pharaoh, suspected he had been recognised and decided to slip away.’

  ‘So the city has been searched?’ I declared.

  ‘Whatever we can do without raising too much of a fuss.’ Nakhtimin got to his feet. ‘Lord Ay asked me to search you out and give you the news.’ He waved away the sweaty beer stall owner holding a cup of date wine and tossed him a deben of copper. ‘I don’t want it now. Give it to my friend.’

  Nakhtimin bowed and strode away, leaving me to my wine.

  I stared across at the bustling square and smiled to myself. I have had years to reflect about Akenhaten. How he began worshipping the Aten, the one omnipotent, invisible God, because of secret teaching by his mother, the Great Queen Tiye, whose ancestors had wandered down from Canaan, driving their flocks before them to feast on the riches of Egypt. Others argued how the worship of the Aten was already in place during the reign of his father, that it was a political move to counter the growing power of the Temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak and that of Luxor in Thebes. Still others maintained it was a mixture of the two, but the older I grew and the more I listened, the more clearly I saw a young man obsessed with an idea, rejected and insulted by his father, who, if he had had his way, would have
had him murdered at birth. I thought of the humiliation Akenhaten had suffered at the hands of the priests of Amun-Ra. How he’d been banished from the Mansions of a Million Years and not allowed to mix with the others in the Great House. Was Akenhaten’s devotion to the Aten simply revenge? A reason to stir the pool just to see the dirt rise? On that evening in Memphis I wondered. Akenhaten’s shadow still hung over everything; his personality and his policies still dominated the land of Egypt. Was that what he wanted? For people to recognise that once he had walked this earth, that he was not to be ignored?

  ‘Great of mischief,’ one priest had described him. ‘Great of mischief and great of lies.’ I have no son, but if I had, I would teach him the one true lesson I have learned in life: what we are as children, so shall we be as adults; how we are treated as children, so shall we treat others as adults. Oh, we don our wigs and put the chains of office around our necks. We garb ourselves in gauffered robes with gold, silver and precious jewels so we shimmer like dazzling images. Yet in the end, the heart cannot be adorned. It doesn’t change, it simply reflects everything it has learnt.

  On that evening, sitting under a dusty palm tree sipping cheap date wine, I recognised that what was true of Akenhaten was also true of me; that was the bond between the two of us. In my early days, as a Child of the Kap, I had been ridiculed and taunted by the Pharaoh’s Chief Minister, the great Hotep, that I was not truly my father’s son. Perhaps this explains why Father hardly bothered with me but left me to the sinister care of Aunt Isithia, a woman with a heart steeped in darkness. A woman who, if reports were true, drove my own mother to her grave and liked nothing better than to bait me, a child, with all forms of subtle cruelty. As a man, I paid her back coin for coin. I told Sobeck she was responsible for the betrayal of him and the Royal Concubine whom he’d secretly seduced. Isithia suffered an accident, stumbling off the roof of her house. I ordered flies to be buried with her, something in life that she could not stand. I also told her embalmers to burn her heart so she’d wander for ever the Halls of the Underworld.