Tutankhamun: The Book of Shadows

8

At the jetty, Khay gave me a papyrus of authority that would allow me to enter the Malkata Palace again, and to request an audience with him at any time. He told me he lived within the royal quarters. I should make use of him whenever I needed. Everything he said made it clear he was the pass to all gates, the man whose word was law, whose every whisper was heard in the ear of power. As I turned away, he offered me a leather bag.

‘What’s this?’

‘Consider it a small advance.’

I looked inside. It contained a good-quality gold ring.

‘Why is it a small one?’

‘I trust it will be adequate.’

His voice ground the words like grit under a millstone. He turned and left without waiting for any response I might have cared to offer.

I stood at the stern of the boat, looking backwards as it was rowed away, until the palace containing its lonely Queen and its strange, clandestine young King disappeared behind the ramparts of the great lake’s defences.

The boat left me discreetly in a far corner of the docks, and I walked back past the hundreds of moored boats, each with their painted eyes, shifting and knocking against each other on the surface of the river’s dark currents, their sails folded and stowed, and their crews and some of the dock workers sleeping on the decks and in the shadow of the heaps of goods, curled into their dreams like ropes into a coil. At the far end of the dock, in the dark, I noticed, to my surprise, two boats being unloaded of their cargo. No torches were lit to illuminate the work-but the moon’s light was almost adequate. The men worked silently, efficiently transferring a number of clay containers from the ships to a convoy of carts. I saw a tall, thin man walking among them, directing affairs. Smugglers, probably, for no one else dared to navigate the dangerous river in the dark. Well, it was none of my business. I had other concerns.

Walking is my cure for confusion; it is the only thing that makes me feel sane sometimes. I made my way back through the deserted streets, and now the night city felt like a vacant theatre, a construction of papyrus, shadows and dreams. I set myself to a proper consideration of everything this extraordinary day had laid before me. The festival ceremonials with their strangely repressed atmosphere; the astonishing act of sacrilege; the girl in the cells, and her rage, which had matured like a wine into something dark and powerful; this night meeting with the Queen of the kingdom-anxious with fear; the encounter with the King’s wet nurse. And perhaps most shocking of all, the dead boy, his cruelly shattered limbs, his appalling posture of perfection, arranged for death, and the linen spell. What did these things, the events of this day, have to do with each other? If, indeed, they had anything to do with each other-for I am given to finding patterns where, perhaps, none exist. Still, I sensed something-an intuition, elusive, just out of the reach of thought, like the glinting edge of a shard flashing for a moment among ruins-but then it was gone again. At this moment nothing added up. I know I love to consider the ways disparate things may be surprisingly related-more as in a dream or a poem than in reality. My colleagues ridicule me, and perhaps they are right, and yet somehow I do not find the mystery at the heart of human beings is ever as logically fathomable as they say it is. But then again, what use was that to me now?

Next, I considered the carving. Superficially, it expressed animosity towards the previous regime of the Aten, of which the King was the inheritor, survivor and (as had been made clear by his public pronouncements, acts and new buildings) now the destroyer. The iconoclasm, however, was not exceptional, and the interesting question was: why had it been delivered in such a deliberate, even intimate, manner to the King? More subtly, it expressed a severe threat: for the annihilation of the sign represented the annihilation of the reality. The King was also the Sun. And the Sun destroyed, and still worse the royal names destroyed, represented the destruction of the King and Queen in the afterlife. And there was something else: the sheer fury of those chisel-marks spoke of deep, almost mad, anger. It was as if each stab of the chisel was a stab into the King’s eternal spirit. But why, and who was responsible?

I looked up at the moon, now sunk low over the rooftops and the temple pylons, like the sickle of light in the left eye of Horus; and I remembered the old fable we tell our children about how this was the last missing fragment of the God’s destroyed eye, which was finally restored by Thoth, God of Writing and Secrets. Now we know better-we know the actions and movements of the celestial forms from observation; our star calendars record their perpetual motions and great returns over the year, and over infinities of time. And then-suddenly it occurred to me: what if the stone represented a more obvious meaning? What if it said: eclipse? Perhaps it meant a true eclipse? Perhaps the eclipse of the Living Sun was just a metaphor. But what if it wasn’t? It seemed a possible link, and somehow I liked the thought. I would talk to Nakht, who knew all about such things.

I walked up my street, pushed open the gate, and entered the courtyard. Thoth was waiting for me, alert on his haunches, as if he knew I was about to arrive and had prepared to present himself smartly. Tanefert had insisted I acquire him a few years ago, for the city’s streets had become more and more dangerous for a Medjay man like me. She claimed she wanted him as a household guard, but her real intention was for me to have more protection at work. To please her I had acquiesced. And now I could almost admit I loved the animal for his intelligence, loyalty and dignity. He sniffed the air around me, as if to divine all that had happened, and then looked me in the eye with his old, gentle challenge. I passed my hand over his mane, and he walked around me, ready to receive more attention.

‘I’m tired, old man. You’ve been dozing here while I’ve been out working…’

He moved back to his place and settled down, his topaz eyes on guard, seeing everything in the dark.

I closed the outer door, and moved silently into the kitchen. I washed my feet, then drew a cup of water from the clay pot, and ate a handful of dates. Then I moved along the passage, and as quietly as I was able I drew back the curtain to our room. Tanefert was turned on her side, the form of her hips and shoulders like an elegant cursive upon a dark scroll, described by the light from the lamp. I took off my robe, and lay beside her, placing the leather bag by the couch. I knew she was awake. I drew close to her, put my arms around her warm body, fitted my form around hers, and kissed her smooth shoulder. She turned to me, half-smiling, half-annoyed, in the dark, kissed me, and moved into my embrace, soft and comfortable. More than anywhere in the world, this felt like home. I kissed her sleek black hair. What should I tell her of the evening’s events? She knew I rarely spoke about work, and understood my reticence. She never resented it, because she knew I needed to keep it apart, separate. But then again, she can always read me: she sees something wrong or troubling in my face, or in the way I enter a room. There could be no secrets. So I told her.

She stroked my arm as she listened, as if calming her own anxiety. I could feel her heart beating-the bird of her soul in the green tree of her life. I finished my story, and she stayed like that for a while, quietly considering everything; looking at, but also somehow beyond me, the way someone looks into a fire.

‘You could refuse her.’

‘Do you think I should?’

Her silence was eloquent, as always.

‘Then I will return this tomorrow.’

I held up the bag, and shook out the gold ring into her palm.

She looked at it, then handed it back.

‘Don’t ask me to tell you what to do. You know I hate that. It’s not fair.’

‘But what, then?’

She shrugged.

‘What is it?’

‘I don’t know. I have a bad feeling…’

‘Where?’ I reached out for her.

‘Don’t be a fool. I know each day is full of dangers, but what good can come of this? Palace intrigues, and attempts on the life of the King? These are dark matters. They frighten me. But look at you: your eyes are sparkling again…’

‘That’s because I’m worn out…’ I yawned extravagantly for effect.

Neither of us said anything for a little while. I knew what she was thinking. And she knew what I was thinking.

Then my wife spoke.

‘We need this gold,’ she said. ‘And you can’t help yourself. You love a mystery.’

And she smiled sadly, in the dark, at the implication of her words.

‘I love my wife and my children.’

‘But are we mystery enough for the Seeker of Mysteries?’

‘Our girls will be leaving us soon. Sekhmet is nearly sixteen. How did that happen? It’s a great mystery to me how time has passed so swiftly since they were crawling and throwing up and grinning their proud, toothless smiles. And now look…’

Tanefert slipped her hand into mine.

‘And look at us. A middle-aged couple that need their sleep.’

And so she settled her head on its stand and closed her elegant eyes.

I wondered if sleep would honour me on this night. I doubted it. I had to think about how I might approach this new mystery when the sun rose, as it very soon would. I lay back and stared at the ceiling.