by Nick Drake
‘It seems he is not safe anywhere,’ he said at length. ‘It seems nothing we do can assure him of security.’
We had questioned the assistant, and the cook, who hastily explained that Tutankhamun had personally requested the honey be made into cakes. Both were terrified of their involvement in what had happened–and the implication that they were themselves complicit.
‘The King has a sweet tooth. He always requires something sweet at the end of a meal,’ said the cook, his big, sweaty hands twisted together.
‘I did not approve, but the King’s wishes must be obeyed in all things,’ added the assistant superciliously, nervously regarding the cook.
I had the evidence of my own eyes to confirm their story, and no doubt whoever had sent the honey knew too of the King’s pleasure in sweetness.
‘If we can catch those honey gatherers, we can question them directly. They will quickly confess who instructed them to deliver the honey,’ I said. But Simut shook his head.
‘I have already asked the Master of the Hunt. He has persuaded me it will be a fruitless task to track them, especially in the dark. They are experts in the desert, and he assures me if they do not wish to be found they will have disappeared without trace by dawn.’
We pondered the possibilities that remained open to us.
‘The King is alive still, and that is the most important thing.’
‘Certainly. But whose reach is so extensive that even out here’–he gestured at the huge vacancy of the countless stars and the night desert–‘they can attempt to poison him?’
‘I believe there are only two people,’ I replied.
He looked at me and nodded. We understood each other well.
‘And I know which I would pick as the likelier candidate,’ he said quietly.
‘Horemheb?’
He nodded. ‘We are in his territory, and it would not have been difficult for him to track our progress. And it would suit him for the King to die far from his own court, and the chaos that would follow would be the perfect battleground for him to contend with Ay for power.’
‘All of that is true, although it might be said he would be the first suspect one would think of, and perhaps he would not be so–obvious.’
Simut grunted.
‘Whereas Ay is clever enough to engineer something from this distance, which would also cast a shadow of suspicion over Horemheb,’ I continued.
‘But in either case, they would both benefit from the King’s death.’
‘And in either case, they are men of immense influence and power. Ay cannot control the army, and yet he needs it. Horemheb cannot control the offices, and yet he needs them. And both of them wish to control the royal domain. I am beginning to think the King merely stands between them as an obstacle in their own great battle,’ I said.
He nodded.
‘What do you think we should do?’ he asked.
‘I think we should remain here. The priority is to kill a lion. That in itself will give the King renewed comfort, and confidence.’
‘I agree. To return in any other way would be a sign of failure. He has set the stakes very high. We must not fail.’
We walked back to the brazier, to warm ourselves.
‘I will watch through the night, with the guards,’ offered Simut.
‘And I will see if the King needs anything, and I’ll sleep in his tent, if he requires it.’
And so we parted.
30
Tutankhamun was sitting on his travelling throne, staring at nothing, holding the dead monkey like a baby in his lap. I bowed my head and waited for him to speak.
‘You saved my life,’ he said, eventually, flatly.
I remained silent.
‘You will be rewarded,’ he continued. ‘Look up.’
I did so, and I saw to my relief that something important had changed in him.
‘I confess that everything that has happened in these last weeks has brought great fear into my heart. Sometimes I was afraid to be alive. And fear itself became my master. But the King of the Two Lands must not be afraid. It is time to conquer my fear, to give it no authority. Otherwise what will I be, but the prey of shadows?’
‘Fear is human, lord,’ I said, carefully, ‘but it is wise to learn its deceits and its powers, in order to control and defeat them.’
‘You are right. And in doing so, I learn the deceits of those who would use fear against me; those who would use the images of death to terrify me. But if I give death no sway, then fear has no sway. Is that not true, Rahotep?’
‘It is true, lord. But it is common to all to fear death. It is a reasonable fear.’
‘And yet I cannot afford to live in fear of it any more.’
He looked down at the dead monkey, and gently stroked its fur.
‘Death is only a dream, from which we awake in a more glorious place.’
I could not agree with him, and therefore I remained silent.
‘I know you well enough now, Rahotep, to see when you are not speaking your mind.’
‘Death is a subject I resist discussing.’
‘And yet your life’s work is the business of death.’
‘Perhaps, lord. But I have no love for it.’
‘I would imagine, having seen so much of it, you must find it somehow disappointing,’ he commented, accurately.
‘It is at once disappointing and remarkable. I look at corpses, which were a day before living, talking and laughing, committing their petty crimes and enjoying their love-affairs, and now what is left behind but an inert sack of blood and viscera? What has happened? My mind still blanks at the thought of the experience of being dead.’
‘We are alike, we both think too much,’ he said, and smiled.
‘It is worst in the small hours. I realize death is a day closer. I fear the death of those I love. I fear my own death. I think about the good I have not done, and the love I failed to cherish, and the time I have wasted. And when I have done with all that useless remorse, I think about death’s emptiness. Not to be here. Not to be anywhere at all…’
He said nothing for a moment. I wondered if I had gone too far. But then he clapped his hands and laughed.
‘What wonderful company you are, Rahotep! Such optimism, such cheerfulness…’
‘You are right, lord. I brood. My daughters tell me to cheer up.’
‘They are right to do so. But I am concerned. I hear no word of faith in the Gods in what you say.’
I paused before replying, for suddenly the ground of our conversation felt thin as papyrus.
‘I struggle with my faith. And I struggle to believe. Perhaps that is my personal way of being afraid. Faith tells us that in spirit we never die. But I find, try as I might, I cannot yet believe that story.’
‘Life itself is holy, Rahotep. The rest is mystery.’
‘Indeed, lord. And sometimes, as I lie there thinking my futile thoughts, the light steals up on me; dawn comes, and the children awake, and outside the street fills up with people and activity, as it does in every street, all through the city, as in every city in the land. And I remember there is work to be done. And I get up.’
He said nothing for a moment.
‘You are right. Duty is everything. And there is great work to be accomplished. Everything that has happened recently has only encouraged me in my absolute determination to fulfil my kingship, in the line of my great ancestors. When we return to Thebes, I will establish a new order. The rule of darkness will be abolished. It is time to bring light and hope to the Two Lands, in the glorious names of the Kings of my dynasty.’
I bowed my head again at these brave words. And I let myself wonder how the world would be if, perhaps, after all, the light could conquer the shadows.
He poured two goblets of wine, passed me one, and offered a stool to sit with him.
‘I understand who has reason to wish me dead. Horemheb is ambitious for power. He sees me merely as an impediment to his own dynasty. And Ay will opp
ose the new order, because it denies him his authority. But Ankhesenamun and I will deal with him accordingly.’
‘The Queen is a great asset,’ I said.
‘She has a mind for strategy, and I for appearance. It is a fortunate combination. And we trust each other. We have depended on each other since we were children, at first from necessity, but that quickly grew into mutual admiration.’
He paused.
‘Tell me about your family, Rahotep.’
‘I have three glorious girls, and a young son, thanks to the grace of my wife.’
He nodded.
‘You are indeed fortunate. Ankhesenamun and I have not yet achieved that, and it is imperative we raise children to succeed us. Twice we have failed, for the infants were stillborn. Girls, they told me. Their deaths had a grave effect upon us. It made my wife feel…blighted.’
‘But you are both young. There is time.’
‘You are right–there is time. Time is on our side.’
Neither of us spoke for a moment. The faint light from the brazier played across the tent walls. Suddenly I felt tired.
‘I will sleep outside your tent tonight,’ I said.
He shook his head.
‘That’s unnecessary. I will no longer be afraid of the dark. And tomorrow we will hunt again, and perhaps fortune will bring us what we seek: a lion.’
I stood, and bowed my head. I was about to step back, and out of the tent, when he unexpectedly spoke again.
‘Rahotep. When we return to Thebes, I wish you to become my personal bodyguard.’
I was astonished into silence.
‘I am honoured, lord. But surely Simut has that position.’
‘I wish to appoint someone who will concentrate on my security to the exclusion of all else. I can trust you, Rahotep; I am sure of it. You are a man of honour and dignity. My wife and I need you.’
I must have looked disconcerted, for he continued:
‘It will be a generously rewarded position. I am sure your family would benefit. And you would not have to consider your career prospects in the city Medjay again.’
‘You do me too great an honour. May we discuss this again when we return to Thebes?’
‘Yes. But do not refuse me.’
‘Life, prosperity and health, lord.’
He nodded, and I bowed and stepped backwards. But before I left the tent he called to me:
‘I enjoy talking to you, Rahotep. As much as I have enjoyed talking to any man.’
Outside, I looked up at the moon, and thought about the oddness of fate; of the disparate things that had brought me to this place, this wilderness, and this moment. And I realized that, despite everything, I was smiling. Not just at the strangeness of my audiences with the most powerful man in the world, who was still something of a child; but at the unpredictability of fortune, or luck, that now offered me what it had seemed I would never achieve. Preferment. And I indulged myself in a rare, delicious sensation: the thought of triumph over that clod of authority, Nebamun. I would enjoy watching his rage when I told him that I no longer needed anything from him.
31
A tracker returned that evening with news. He had found the tracks of a lion. But they lay far off, deeper into the Red Land. We gathered in Simut’s tent.
‘He is a nomad,’ said the tracker.
‘What does that mean?’ asked Simut.
‘He is not attached to any pride. Young males live alone in the desert, before finding a pride to which they can belong again, in order to father young. Whereas the females always hunt together, and always remain in their home prides. So we have to follow him into his own domain.’
We agreed we would dismantle the camp, and move everything to where the tracks had been found. From the new camp, it would be possible to take our time, track the lion, and choose our moment to hunt. We had sufficient supplies of food and water to last at least another week. And if the lion moved even deeper into the desert, then we could travel further, even as far as the remote oases, if necessary, for supplies of food and water.
I watched as our temporary habitation was taken down again. All the golden furniture, the kitchen equipment and the caged animals were loaded on to carts. The goats were tethered together again. The cook’s hooks, knives and great cauldrons were loaded on to the mules. And finally the King’s tent was dismantled, the central pole and its golden ball taken down, and the long lengths of cloth folded and packed away. Suddenly it looked as if we had never been here at all, so transient was the impression we had made upon the vastness of the desert. All that was left was the chaos of our footprints and the brazier’s circle of black ash that was already drifting apart in the light northern breeze. I pressed the cinders down under my foot, and remembered the black circle on the box lid back in the Palace of Shadows. Of all the signs, it was the one that had haunted me most. I still did not know its meaning.
The sun was already well past its zenith when we set off deeper into the Red Land. The air shimmered across the desolate, barren landscape; we travelled slowly through a wide empty bed of shale and grit, surrounded by low bluffs, that might once have been a great river in the ancient past–for it is known that the bones of strange sea creatures were occasionally revealed by the wind and the changing sands. But now, as if by some catastrophe of time and the Gods, everything in this world had been transmuted to this grey and red rock and dust under the furnace of the sun. The great slow seas of sand, which I had heard of in tales from travellers, had to be much further to the west.
I rode beside Simut.
‘Perhaps fortune is at last gracing us,’ he said quietly–for every sound travelled crisply in the silent air.
‘All we have to do now is track the lion.’
‘And then we must do everything to help the King to his triumph,’ he replied.
‘He is determined to make the kill himself, but it is one thing to kill an ostrich among a herd of terrified animals, and another altogether to face and kill a desert lion,’ I said.
‘I agree. We will have to surround him with the best hunters in our team. Perhaps if they can bring the lion down, then he would be content to strike the final blow. It would still be his kill.’
‘I hope so.’
We rode on without speaking for a while.
‘He seems to have recovered well from the death of his monkey.’
‘If anything, it has strengthened his resolve.’
‘I never liked that pathetic creature. I would have wrung its neck long ago…’
We laughed quietly.
‘I pity its suffering, but it turned out to have a use, in the end.’
‘As a food-taster, and through its greed, like a creature in a moral fable, it came to an unfortunate end,’ he replied, with a rare, wry smile.
After slowly crossing the forsaken ocean of gravel and grey dust for hours, we came at last into a different, strange, wild landscape where the artistry of the wind had carved pillars of pale rock into fantastical shapes, lit now in yellows and oranges by the glory of the sunset. The brazier was quickly set, the tents resurrected, and soon the smells of cooking drifted richly in the pure air.
The King appeared at the entrance to his tent.
‘Come, Rahotep, let us walk together before it is dark.’
And so we strolled among the curious forms of the rocks, enjoying the cooling air.
‘This is another world,’ he said. ‘How many others, of perhaps still greater strangeness, lie even further away into the Red Land?’
‘Perhaps the world is much larger than we can know, lord. Perhaps the Red Land is not all there is of the land of the living. There are stories of lands of snow, and lands where all is green, always,’ I replied.
‘I would like to be the King who discovers and charts strange lands and new peoples. I dream of how the glory of our empire might one day go forth into unknown worlds, and into the dim future. Who knows but that what we make in this world might survive time itself! Why should it not? We a
re a great people of gold and power. The best of us is beautiful and true. I am glad we came, Rahotep. I was right to command it. Away from the palace, away from those walls and shadows, I feel alive again. I have not felt alive for so long. It is good. And fortune will smile upon me now. I can feel the goodness of the future, just ahead of me, calling to me to make it come to pass…’
‘That is a great calling, lord.’
‘It is. I feel it, in my heart. It is my destiny as King. The Gods are waiting for me to fulfil it.’
As we had talked, the brilliant stars, in all their glory and mystery, had appeared in the great ocean of the night. We both stood beneath them, looking up.
32
We set out in the chariots, properly armed and provisioned, as the sun was setting on the next day. The trackers had reconnoitred the terrain and found more signs. The lion’s territory seemed to centre on the low, shady bluffs at a little distance from the camp. No doubt they provided a haven for whatever life could survive in this harsh place. We carried with us a newly slaughtered goat’s carcass, to tempt him. We waited, our chariots arranged in a wide fan, watching from a careful distance as a tracker rode across the grey landscape with the dead animal, deposited it, and then retreated.
The tracker took up a position next to me.
‘He will be very hungry, for the prey is limited out here, and we have offered him a fine feast. I hope he will take the bait before it is dark.’
