The Season of the Hyaena

Chapter 10

For a while Pentju could not control his agitation.

‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘Why are you so concerned that Khufu has survived?’

‘I couldn’t care if he burns in the Underworld, in the Pit of Eternal Fire.’ Pentju lifted his head. ‘I want this all brought to an end, Mahu. Egypt has its Prince.’

‘Why did you come to the Temple of Ptah?’ I asked.

Pentju wiped the tears with the back of his hand. ‘Am I under arrest, Mahu? Will I be summoned to the Court of Amun or be made to answer to the Royal Circle? Has the Lord Ay gathered his policemen?’

‘No.’ I stretched out my legs and forced myself to relax. ‘I am here because I am Mahu, Child of the Kap, and so are you.’

‘When did you care for anyone, Mahu, apart from your hunting, your poetry and that servant of yours, Djarka?’ Pentju leaned over, plucked a flower and sniffed at it before tossing it into the pool. ‘And that’s wrong too,’ he apologised. ‘You do care for the Prince; that’s why I’ll answer your questions, or try to.’

‘Let me help you, Pentju. You came to the Temple of Ptah to make offerings to pay a mortuary priest, because it is far away from Thebes and the inquisitive eyes of the Lord Ay and his gang.’

Pentju didn’t protest.

‘What I want to know is why you described your family as slain. Why you paid for an execration text for a Child of Evil to be cursed.’

‘I regard my family as murdered, Mahu. I should have looked after them. I was the physician. I should have done something, but I was guarding the Prince. I brought them to the City of the Aten: that’s the Child of Evil; that’s also what I called the plague.’

His answers were too easy, bland, the words came tripping off his tongue, so I knew it would be futile to press the matter further. He got to his feet.

‘So, you have Khufu?’ He stretched out his hand and grasped mine. ‘He may be interesting. You should keep him safe.’

Pentju left. I returned to the emptying streets. The celebrations were now finished. In the squares some temple girls still lingered, watching a conjuror breathe fire from his mouth whilst two dwarfs performed lacklustre somersaults. Beggars clustered like locusts, eager to test the generosity of those going to and from the wine shops and temple booths. Market police, cudgels in hand, kept a wary eye on the throng of soldiers and mercenaries drifting into the town as their officers relaxed discipline at the barracks. A balmy evening, one I will always remember after the stench of the Delta; the homely smells of cooking shops, cheap perfume, as well as the smoke from burning tamarind seed and incense, came as a welcome relief. I passed the slaughter house near the Wall of Death and glimpsed the cadavers of the red-haired woman and the mercenary captains who had supported her, bound in sheepskin, hanging by their heels in chains.

I kept away from the slums. The hour was too late, and even my club and dagger might not be protection enough. I walked up the main avenue, dominated on either side by its line of copper-headed bulls. People of every nation streamed by, chattering in various tongues: striped-robed sand-dwellers, Libyan shepherds, merchants from Punt and Kush. Whenever an army assembles, the traders always follow. Heralds armed with conch horns were still proclaiming Horemheb’s great victory in the Delta. Already the storytellers were busy for custom, offering to provide their audience with graphic and truthful accounts of ‘the hideous struggle against the usurper’. Some enterprising trader claimed he had red hair plucked from the false Pharaoh’s Queen, and offered to sell it as a memento to any interested passer-by. I walked through them swinging my cudgel, lost in my own thoughts. A boy came alongside me. He was jumping up and down like a frog, something glittering in his hand. I smiled and walked faster; so did he, a fixed smile on his face.

‘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.

‘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.

I reflected on how Ay had tried to drive me from the Royal Circle and I knew why I had resisted. First, my loyalty to the Prince, the living clasp between myself and what had gone before. Secondly — yes, there was another reason, one I’ve told my own interrogators, so simple, so lucid, almost childlike. True, I had nowhere to go and nothing else to do, but that was not all. The true reason was that I was curious. I was like a man who wanders into a marketplace and watches the most dramatic quarrel take place. Insults fly, secrets are revealed, grudges surface, and although it has nothing to do with you, you are still caught up in the drama; you want to stay and see what happens.

I finished my palm wine and, clutching my cudgel, walked out of the city through the great gateway dominated by carved figures of Ptah, arms crossed, his unseeing eyes staring out over the Black Lands. Many of the peasants were leaving now the markets were closed. They were sleepy after their wine and beer, hearts full of wonderment at the doings of the Great Ones of the land. I listened to their chatter, the rumours that Akenhaten had returned. The Great Heretic would not leave them alone! They talked of him as if he were some evil spirit out of the west, a sombre ghost. I smiled to myself. The legends and stories were already being born, the truth slowly being twisted.

I approached Nebamun’s country mansion, that elegant house perched on the banks of the Nile yet shielded from it by long grass, bushes and clumps of trees. Now it lay all serene, but I recalled the frenzied attack by the usurper’s mercenaries, how close they had come to victory. Nebamun certainly had not forgotten it. Members of his regiment camped amongst the trees, as did my mercenaries round their camp fires, still celebrating the day’s events. Their captain rose to greet me, aggrieved that I had wandered into the city alone, remonstrating that it wasn’t safe. I agreed with him. He pointed to the two great pillars leading into the courtyard. At the base of each Nebamun had placed a skull, a grisly reminder of what had happened. I told the man to keep close watch and wandered into the courtyard, where more of my men sprawled in the shade. The captain came running after me, saying how members of Ay’s retinue had brought the Prince back. I found him and Djarka in their old quarters. Colonel Nebamun was still absent at the victory banquet and his chamberlain fussed about me till I snapped at him to leave me alone. Tutankhamun came to greet me, dancing from foot to foot, little arms held high. Djarka still looked downcast and apologetic. I told him that the matter was finished.

‘You could not have opposed the Lord Ay,’ I reassured him. ‘Perhaps I should not have left you, but there again, I had no choice. Now come, something to eat and drink?’

Djarka went down to the kitchens and brought back food and wine, with apple juice for the Prince. I sat and listened to Tutankhamun’s chatter, his constant stream of questions. How many had I killed in the Great Battle? Was I a Great Warrior? Could I show him how the battle went?

I arranged his toy soldiers and chariots and gave him the most vivid description, whilst he sat round-eyed, sipping at the juice and nibbling at sesame cake. I took Djarka aside and asked him if there had been recurrences of that trance-like state when the Prince seemed not to recognise anything or anyone. Djarka shook his head. I asked him to bring up the box of shets, the small tortoises which fascinated both me and Tutankhamun, I had brought these from Thebes. The boy loved them. I had painted their shells different colours. We shared a secret. Each tortoise was named after a member of the Royal Circle: Horemheb, Rameses, Meryre, Tutu, Huy and Maya. The last was the fattest. Tutankhamun thought this was amusing, and often giggled behind his fingers. I watched the little things crawl over the floor.

‘My lord?’

‘Yes, Uncle Mahu?’

‘Where are Meryre and Tutu? You have two missing.’

‘I drowned them.’ Tutankhamun stood, hands hanging by his sides. He must have caught my look, for his lower lip came out and began to quiver. ‘They were traitors,’ he declared. ‘They were no longer members of the Royal Circle, so I drowned them in a pool and buried them in the garden.’

I glanced sharply at Djarka, who just shook his head.

‘Did I do wrong, Uncle Mahu?’

I was going to say yes, when I thought of all the men I had killed in battle or executed silently and swiftly in the darkness of the night. I stretched out my arms. He ran towards me.

‘They were only tortoises,’ I whispered.

‘They were traitors,’ he declared fiercely. ‘They would have killed you, Uncle Mahu.’

Whilst the tortoises crawled about, I arranged the board and pieces for a game of Senet and played until the Prince’s eyes grew heavy. Djarka scooped him up and took him to bed, and I went along to the other side of the house. Nebamun’s chamberlain assured me that Khufu’s room was closely guarded. The prisoner hadn’t been troubled, but had been given food and drink, which the chamberlain had tasted first. I opened the door and peered in. Khufu lay on his bed, snoring like a pig.

Nebamun returned slightly drunk, a floral collar about his neck, a lotus behind his ear, whilst the cone of perfume bestowed on every banquet guest had melted so he reeked like a temple girl. He was assisted by two of his staff officers, who helped him into the hall where, perched drunkenly on a stool, he bawled for a jug of light beer. He opened the small casket he was holding.

‘Look, Mahu.’ The old soldier swayed dangerously. ‘Look what they have given me.’

It was a gold-bejewelled collar of bravery, which proclaimed Nebamun as ‘Great of Valour’. He put this back into the casket and demanded that I join him in a drink. Once again he recounted his version of the battle, the glories of Horemheb’s victory, and my, as he put it, major part in it. Nebamun was a true soldier, a veritable treasure house of funny stories which mocked both himself and his superiors. He chattered about the banquet too: I gathered the rest were still feasting.

‘But,’ Nebamun tapped the side of his nose, ‘they are not as drunk as they pretend. They want you to join them tomorrow, just before dawn, for a hunting party. Now why should they want to go hunting?’

‘Because that’s what we always do, that’s what we have always done, the Children of the Kap, the Royal Circle: we go out in the desert where there are no ears, no eyes, no scribes.’

‘I thought as much,’ Nebamun drunkenly agreed. ‘They want to discuss the saati, the usurper.’

‘They say you saw the True Pharaoh?’

‘I didn’t call him the True Pharaoh.’ Nebamun sobered up. ‘He was not my True Pharaoh. I glimpsed Akenhaten and I spoke with true voice.’ He waved his finger at me and recounted the same story Nakhtimin had told me.

‘But are you sure?’

‘A mere chance,’ he slurred. ‘You know how it is, Mahu. You see something, at first you don’t recognise or don’t realise what’s happening. It was only afterwards.’ He shook his head. ‘I hadn’t been drinking. I know what I saw. Tall he was, angular, chest sticking out, his belly like a pouch, the wide hips, but above all those spindly fingers, those eyes, the line of his face, the long jaw. He was fingering a circle of turquoise beads. I once stood near him in Thebes.’ He smiled. ‘Or rather I nosed the ground before him. I took my opportunity to study the man who was busy turning everything on its head. I remember faces. I would remember his. I wish I had captured him, but …’ He shrugged.

‘You could have been mistaken?’

Nebamun smiled. ‘No, no, my lord. Ay has already been busy searching for the truth. The usurper and his accomplices, including some of the mercenary captains, have been taken to the Kheb-t and put to the torture.’

‘My lord Ay is impatient.’

‘He brought his own torturer with him,’ Nebamun replied. ‘The Usernu.’

I recognised the title for the Chief Torturer from the Temple of Osiris. He was one of Ay’s minions, who governed the hideous dungeons and chambers beneath the House of Secrets.

‘I thought you’d know,’ Nebamun drawled. ‘Isn’t the House of Secrets in your care?’

‘It’s supposed to be,’ I agreed. ‘A minor bone of contention between myself and Lord Ay, but we have reached a pact. I don’t interfere with him and he certainly doesn’t interfere with me. So, what have these torturers learnt?’

Nebamun held up a forefinger and thumb, as if measuring something small. ‘Tiny nuggets,’ he murmured. ‘But one thing is certain. According to everything Ay has learnt — and he’s already telling this to the Royal Circle, making no secret of it — Akenhaten has been seen in Canaan. They believe he is still there. Now, what do you think of that?’

‘It could be true,’ I agreed. ‘But if Meryre can play with impostors, so can Lord Ay.’

The old colonel drew his brows together.

‘I trust you, Colonel.’

He leaned over and patted me affectionately on the knee.

‘And you are not a bad fellow either, Mahu, for a policeman.’

‘What if,’ I continued, ‘Ay has decided to play the same game? To spread rumours that Akenhaten is still alive. It will bind the Royal Circle together to face a common enemy.’

Nebamun scratched his head. ‘I am only a soldier, Mahu. No, that’s just an excuse. I see your point. If Egypt is strong, united, the likes of myself will kill its enemies.’

‘After I left here,’ I asked, changing the subject, ‘how was Meryre?’

‘Very quiet.’ Nebamun blinked. ‘Yes, very quiet, rather subdued. I made sure his armed retainers were kept well away, though I allowed him to meet with his gaggle of priests. He was …’ Nebamun blew his lips out, ‘you’d think he was waiting or listening for something. He asked my permission to look at the per-met cha.’

‘You have a library?’ I asked.

‘Just a small one. Documents, books, items I have picked up. I like to read, Lord Mahu. I understand you are a poet.’

‘And what did Meryre want?’

‘He said he was interested in the Amnett, the Land of the Dead. I asked him again. He replied the same. He wanted to see the Land of the Dead.’

‘Do you know what he meant?’

Nebamun shrugged. ‘You know these priests. They babble on about this and that. I saw no harm in it. The library is a small chamber at the back of the house. It’s dark and dry, suitable for manuscripts. The only ones to go in are myself and the cat; it lives there to keep the mice down.’

‘And Meryre’s escape?’

Nebamun pulled a face. ‘You know how it is, my lord Mahu. God’s Father Ay arrived, all-important, but by then I had left. We had received our orders to march and I was ready to go. One night Meryre and his companions were here, the next they were gone.’

‘Do you think Lord Ay arranged their escape?’

‘The thought has occurred to me, as well as to Lord Horemheb.’ Nebamun grinned. ‘Perhaps Lord Ay did not wish Meryre to be put to torture? After all …’ Nebamun got to his feet, dropping his beer jug, which I caught and put on the table. ‘Thank you. After all,’ he walked to the door, ‘it would be highly embarrassing to execute members of the Royal Circle, not to mention a high priest of the Aten cult. Anyway, I am to bed.’

I waited for a while, then went down across the house to the small chamber on the second floor which served as Nebamun’s library. I asked the chamberlain to bring oil lamps. I lit these. The cat, sleeping in a corner, sprang to its feet and padded silently around its kingdom. It was a typical soldier’s room, everything neatly filed and ordered. Scrolls were kept in baskets of thick stiffened reeds. The puffs of dust when I lifted the lid showed these had not been disturbed for weeks. I crossed to the shelves where other papyrus rolls had been placed in their niches, each carefully labelled. Again the polished sycamore wood was covered with a fine layer of dust. Carrying a lamp, I checked every ledge until I found where the dust had been disturbed. I pulled out the document. It had been rolled up in a rather haphazard way; this was the document Meryre had looked at. I laid it out on the table and was rather disappointed, for it was only a map. The hieroglyphs across the top proclaimed it to be the property of the Aauaaul-Shet Aiu, the Gods of the Secret Doors and Ways, a rather pompous label for nothing more than a crude map of Egypt, Sinai and Canaan. The Nile was clearly delineated, as were the various cities, the Great Green to the north, the lands of the Hittites and Mitanni, the Sinai peninsula and the Horus Road. Moving an oil lamp, I realised Meryre had marked where the City of the Aten stood.

‘Why did he do that?’ I whispered.

I searched the library again, but could find nothing else. I went down to the kitchen and told the sleepy-eyed cooks to bring a light meal of beef grilled over charcoal and sprinkled with herbs, fresh bread and a jug of wine to the eating hall. I went and kicked Khufu awake. He was drowsy, rather slurred, but I told him to wash and meet me for something to eat. A short while later we dined in the light of oil lamps. Khufu was ravenous, eating quickly, drinking the wine so deeply I told him to be careful. He stopped, his mouth full of juice.

‘You will keep your word, Lord Mahu?’

‘Your life, limb and security are guaranteed,’ I replied. ‘I swear that by earth and sky. You will be given money, provisions and turned out to make your own way in the world. Now, tell me, Khufu, when that happens, where will you go?’

He swallowed hard.

‘Or let me be more blunt. If you wished to follow Meryre, where would you go?’

He stared at the wine cup. ‘If,’ he slurred, ‘if I had to go, I’d travel to one of the villages in the Eastern Desert.’

I recalled the map Meryre had been studying.

‘And then you’d travel north?’

Khufu nodded his agreement. ‘Go east, then north to avoid the Medjay, across the desert and into Canaan; that’s the safest place for the likes of us. We’d still find refuge at the Hittite court but it would be perilous. There are bound to be rewards posted, whilst Prince Aziru is a broken reed. However, I will not join them.’ He gazed bleakly at me. ‘When you release me, Lord Mahu, I shall journey south to Kush. Find some small temple town and end my days in peace.’

‘What would Meryre mean by the Land of the Dead? He wasn’t talking about the Far Horizon?’

‘I heard him talk about the Sea of the Dead, a passing reference, a great inland lake in northern Canaan. The water is so salted it contains no life and lies surrounded by harsh deserts. Local wanderers claim that two great cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, once stood there before they were destroyed by fire from heaven which scorched the land and turned the water to poison.’

‘Anything else?’

Khufu shook his head.

‘And these rumours about Akenhaten being seen in Canaan?’

‘As you say, my lord Mahu, they were rumours. A search was made …’

I leaned across the table, my knife held only inches from his eyes.

‘My lord Mahu, I tell the truth. Why should I lie? Prince Aziru searched but could find nothing; that’s why the impostor emerged.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘I was excluded from the War Council, as was Djoser. I suspect they hoped that if they were successful the real Akenhaten would emerge later. My task was to proclaim that the usurper was the True Pharaoh, nothing more, nothing less.’

‘Tell me.’ I withdrew the knife. ‘Djoser was killed out along the Horus Road, but before he died, he babbled about the physician Pentju, how Meryre was very keen to draw this physician into his plotting. Now Pentju is a very powerful man, a great physician, but why would the conspirators be so interested in him?’

‘He was another member of the Royal Circle?’ Khufu stammered. ‘He had been guardian of the Prince Tutankhamun, a friend of his mother?’

I caught it, the shift of fear in his eyes. My only regret is that I never forced him then.

‘I want you to tell me.’ I put down the knife and pointed across the chamber to where I’d placed a writing palette with papyrus pens and inkpot. ‘I want you to go over there and write down everything you know, from the moment the City of the Aten began to crumble.’ I seized his wrists. ‘I want to know everything. You have slept well. Your hunger has been satisfied and your belly has taken enough wine. I shall wait.’

Khufu rose to his feet and scampered across.

I have the document still. I have kept it close: let Khufu tell his own story.