Tutankhamun: The Book of Shadows

40

Simut’s elite guards took up positions along the dark, adjoining streets, and on the neighbouring rooftops. The city was silent, under the night curfew, apart from solitary dogs barking aggressively to each other across the darkness, under the moon and stars.

Khety had returned Thoth to me, and the animal danced and chattered quietly at my side in pleasure at our reunion. But time was short. Khety and I had urgent news to communicate. As we made our way to this place, he had told me quickly, in urgent whispers, that my family were safe and well; and under Nakht’s care, the boy was improving. He had not died. Then he had wanted to know how I had identified Sobek. I explained it all.

‘Then we’ve done it,’ he said, delighted.

‘Unfortunately not,’ I replied.

And having made him swear to keep the secret, I told him the story of the King’s death. For once he was utterly silenced.

‘Say something, Khety. You always have something ludicrously optimistic to say.’

He shook his head.

‘I can’t think of anything. It’s an absolute disaster. A calamity.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I don’t mean it was your fault. You did everything that was asked of you. You followed your orders from the King himself. But what’s going to happen to us all now? The city’s already restless. No one knows what’s happening. It’s as though the whole of the Two Lands is on the precipice of an abyss, and at any moment we could all go tumbling in.’

‘These are dark times, Khety. But don’t be so melodramatic. It doesn’t help. Have there been any more murders in the city, like those of the boy and Neferet?’

He shook his head.

‘Nothing. As far as I know. Nothing has been reported. It has all gone very quiet. Word got out on to the streets of the other murders. It travelled around the clubs very quickly. People are spooked. Perhaps they are just taking much more care.’

I was puzzled.

‘But a killer like this will always find a fresh victim. The desire for the act grows greater with each murder, usually. It becomes an unassuageable hunger. We know he is an obsessive. So where has his obsession led him now? Why would he stop killing?’

He shrugged.

‘Perhaps he has gone to ground.’

He nodded at the house.

‘Perhaps he’s in there now. Perhaps you’ve got him.’

‘Don’t speak too soon. It makes me feel superstitious,’ I replied.

Sobek’s house stood in a street of discreet residences, in a good quarter of the city. Nothing distinguished it from the others. I nodded to Simut. He made a signal to the guards stationed on the rooftops, who leapt silently from roof to roof like assassins. Then, at another brief gesture of command, the guards who accompanied us attacked the solid wooden door with their axes. Quickly it was smashed down. A few neighbours, alarmed by the sudden commotion, peered out into the lane in their night robes, but they were peremptorily ordered back into their houses. I pushed ahead into a vestibule, followed by the guards who spread out silently, their weapons poised, and took command of each room, one at a time, gesturing in silence to each other. Others entered via the roof to secure the upper rooms. Each room was less interesting than the last. It seemed like the home of a solitary man, for the furniture was functional, the decoration modest in the extreme, and there was none of the normal detritus of everyday life. The place seemed lifeless. Upstairs were wooden chests containing efficient but unsophisticated clothing, and a few pieces of nondescript, daily jewellery. The place was deserted. He had eluded me again. Surely we had missed something? It was as if he had known we would find him. And he had left us no clues. But how could he have known? Bitterly disappointed, I walked through the rooms one by one, looking for anything that could give me a way forward.

But suddenly a shout came from the back of the house, beyond the inner courtyard. Simut and his guards stood around a small door, like that which would lead to a storeroom. The cords were tied in what looked like the same magical knot as that which had tied the box containing the rotting death mask. On the seal, I saw a single sign I recognized too: a dark circle. The Sun destroyed. Suddenly elation gripped me. I tried to remain calm as I slipped my knife through the cord, so as to preserve the knot and the seal; and then I pushed open the door.

I smelt at once the chilly, airless, hollow odour of a tomb opened after a long time-as if the darkness had slowly suffocated the air itself. Khety handed me a lamp, and I entered, cautiously. The thought that this was a trap flitted across my mind. I held the lamp up before me, and tried to see beyond its shivering light.

The room seemed to be of a moderate size. Along one wall was a long bench, holding clay vessels in various sizes, and an astounding array of surgical instruments: obsidian knives, sharp hooks, long probes, cupping vessels and vicious forceps, all precise and highly ordered. Further on were a series of small glass phials with stoppers, each with a label. I opened one. It seemed to be empty. I kept it to examine in the light of day. Further down the shelves were more jars. I opened them at random; they seemed to contain a variety of herbs and spices. But the last one contained something I recognized: the powder of the opium poppy. Further along the shelf were several more jars, all containing the identical substance: a substantial supply. The bench was highly ordered and efficient.

But as I stepped forward, I felt something crack and shatter beneath my sandals. I squatted down with the lamp and saw the floor was littered with bones: the little skulls and wing-fans of birds; the miniature skeletons of mice, shrews and rats; the jaws and legs of dogs or baboons or hyenas or jackals; and also pieces of larger bones, which I feared were human, smashed into shards. It was as if I had trespassed into a mass grave of all life. I held the lamp up to peer further into the dark. I saw something still stranger: from the ceiling on twine hung many bones, and broken pieces of bones, to make the shattered skeletons of strange, impossible creatures, part-bird, part-dog, part-human.

Shuffling forward, trying not to tread on any more of the remains at my feet, and loathing the creepy touch of the hanging bones in my hair and on my back, I made out a large, low, shadowy object that stood at the end of the room. As I came closer, I saw it was an embalmer’s bench. On the bench was a small wooden box. Behind the bench, I saw a big black circle had been painted on the back wall. The Sun destroyed. I held the lamp up closer, and all around the perimeter of the circle were those strange, disturbing signs I had seen around the box: curves, sickles, dots and dashes. Spattered all across the dark circle were dripping lines of dried, dark blood. I looked again at the embalmer’s bench; in contrast to the wall’s record of butchery, it was as fastidiously clean as the surgical instruments that lined the walls. But they were not for healing. They were for torture. How many victims had he experimented on in here, as they screamed for mercy, for their lives, or for the mercy of death?

The wooden box carried a label. On it was written, in a neat cursive, one word: ‘Rahotep’. It was a gift from Sobek to me. I had no choice but to open it. Inside I saw something I know I will always see whenever I try to sleep. Eyes. Human eyes. Arranged in identical pairs, like jewels on a tray. I thought of Neferet, and the two boys. All had missing eyes. And here was a box full of staring, quizzical, startled eyes, like a tiny audience paying me the closest attention.