Tutankhamun: The Book of Shadows

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.