by Nick Drake
We were escorted to the King’s chamber, and left to wait outside. Time passed slowly, obscurely. Muffled voices, sometimes raised, carried through the thick wooden doors. Simut and I glanced at each other, but he gave nothing away of what he was thinking or feeling. Then the doors suddenly opened, and we were admitted.
Tutankhamun, Lord of the Two Lands, was laid out upon his couch, his thin hands folded across his thin chest. He had not yet been properly attired for death. He was surrounded by the toys and game boxes of his lost childhood. They seemed now to be his grave goods, the objects he would truly treasure in the Otherworld, rather than the golden paraphernalia of royalty. Ankhesenamun gazed at the dead face of her husband. When she looked up at me, her face was hollow with sorrow and defeat. How could she forgive me? I had failed her as much as I had failed the King. She was alone now, in this palace of shadows. She had become the last living member of her dynasty. No one is more vulnerable than a widowed queen without an heir.
Ay rapped his walking stick suddenly upon the floor stones.
‘We must not indulge our grief. There is no time for mourning. There is too much to be done. It must appear to the world that this event has not occurred. No one may speak of what they have seen. The word death will not be spoken. Fresh food and clean linens will continue to be delivered to the antechamber. His nurse will continue to attend him. But his body will be purified and made beautiful here, in secret, and since his own tomb is far from ready, he will be buried in my tomb in the royal necropolis. It is suitable, and it will not take long to adapt. The gold coffins are already being prepared. His burial treasures and his funerary equipment will be assembled and chosen by me. All of this will be done swiftly, and above all secretly. When the burial has been accomplished, in secret, then, and only then, we will announce his death.’
Ankhesenamun, stirred from her grief by this astonishing proposal, broke the silence that followed.
‘That is absolutely unacceptable. The obsequies and funeral must be conducted with full honour and dignity. Why must we pretend he is not dead?’
Ay approached her furiously.
‘How can you be so naive? Do you not understand that the stability of the Two Lands is at stake? The death of a king is the most vulnerable and potentially disastrous time in the life of a dynasty. There is no heir. And that is because your womb has failed to produce anything other than stillborn, deformed infants,’ he sneered.
I glanced at Ankhesenamun.
‘So the Gods have willed,’ she replied, staring at him in cold anger.
‘We must take control of this situation before chaos overwhelms us all. Our enemies will attempt to destroy us now. I am God’s Father, Doer of Right, and what I decree will be. We must maintain the order of maat by all means necessary. The Medjay divisions are even now being given instructions to prevent public and private association, and to use all means to quell any signs of public unrest on the streets. They will be stationed throughout the city, and along the temple walls.’
It sounded like preparations for a state of emergency. What dissent could be so alarming? Who did he mean as the enemy? Only Horemheb. He was Ay’s greatest threat at this moment; Horemheb, General of the Two Lands, could easily mount a campaign for power now. He was young, he commanded the majority of the divisions of the army, and he was intelligently ruthless. Ay was old. I looked at him, with his painful bones and teeth, and his rage for order; his earthly power that had seemed so absolute for so long, suddenly seemed vulnerable, and weak. But it would not do to underestimate him.
Ankhesenamun saw all of this.
‘There is another way. All of this would be resolved by a strong and immediate succession. I am the last of my great line, and in the name of my father and grandfather, I claim the crowns,’ she countered, proudly.
He glared at her with a contempt that would wither a stone.
‘You are nothing but a weak girl. Do not indulge in fantasies. You have tried to oppose me once, and failed. It is necessary that I will crown myself King shortly, for there is no one else fit to govern.’
She was provoked now.
‘No king may be proclaimed before the Days of Purification are completed. It would be sacrilege.’
‘Do not contest my will. It shall be so. It is necessary, and necessity is the most compelling of all reasons,’ he shouted, his cane quivering in his hand.
‘And what of me?’ she said, intently, calmly composed against his rage.
‘If you are lucky, I may marry you myself. But it depends how useful such an arrangement would be. I am by no means convinced of its value.’
She shook her head in derision.
‘And how is it for you to be convinced of anything? I am Queen.’
‘In name only! You have no power. Your husband is dead. You are quite alone. Think carefully before you speak again.’
‘I will not tolerate you addressing me in this way. I will make a public proclamation.’
‘And I will forbid that and prevent it by any means necessary.’
They stared at each other.
‘Rahotep is assigned as my personal guard. Remember that.’
He merely laughed.
‘Rahotep? The man who guarded the King, and brought him home dead? His record speaks for itself.’
‘The King’s death was not his fault. He is loyal. That is everything,’ she replied.
‘A dog is loyal. That does not make him valuable. Simut will provide a guard. For now, you may mourn in private. And I will consider your future. As for Rahotep, he was given a clear responsibility, and yet the very worst has happened. I will decide his fate,’ he said casually.
I had known these words were coming. I thought of my wife and my children.
‘What about the lion?’ asked Simut. ‘The King cannot be seen to have returned without the trophy.’
‘Kill the tame one, and display it,’ replied Ay dismissively. ‘No one will know the difference.’
And with those words he departed, insisting she accompany him. Simut and I remained standing before the slender body of the King, the young man whose life had been entrusted to us. He was the very image of our defeat. Something was finished here, in this bundle of skin and bone. And something else had begun: the war for power.
‘I doubt even Ay can contain this,’ said Simut. ‘People read signs, and the King’s absence from public life will be noted very quickly. Coming immediately after the fanfare about the royal hunt, and the expectation of his glorious return, the speculation will be uncontrollable.’
‘And that is why Ay needs to bury Tutankhamun as soon as possible, and announce himself King,’ I replied. ‘And he needs to keep Horemheb at a distance for as long as possible.’
‘But the general is as watchful as a jackal. I am sure he will scent this death and seize his opportunity to confront Ay,’ said Simut. ‘It is not an optimistic prospect.’
We both stood staring down at the King’s delicate, dead face. It represented so much more as well: a possible catastrophe for the whole of the Two Lands if this power struggle were not swiftly resolved.
‘What worries me most is that Ankhesenamun is so vulnerable to both of them,’ I said.
‘That is a cause for deep concern,’ he conceded.
‘It would be a disaster if Horemheb returned to Thebes just now.’
‘And it would be a disaster if he entered this palace,’ said Simut. ‘But how can that be prevented while his wife resides here? Perhaps she should be sent away.’
This was news to me.
‘Mutnodjmet? She lives within the palace?’
He nodded.
‘But her name has never been spoken in all this time,’ I said.
He turned his head closely to mine.
‘No one speaks publicly of her. Privately, they say she is a lunatic. She lives in a suite of chambers, from which she never emerges. They say she has only two dwarfs for company. Whether this is by her own will, or whether that of her husband has been i
mposed upon her, I do not know.’
‘You mean she is imprisoned here?’
‘Call it what you will. But she has no liberty. She is the family secret.’
My mind raced ahead, like a dog on the scent of its hidden quarry, suddenly close.
‘I must attend to other matters, but let us talk more, elsewhere. What will you do now?’ he asked.
‘I have no future, apparently,’ I said, with a lightness I did not feel.
‘But you are not yet in fetters.’
‘I suspect if I try to leave this palace, a strange accident will befall me.’
‘Then do not leave. You have a role here. Protect the Queen. I can offer you in turn the protection of my guards, and whatever degree of safety the authority of my name confers.’
I nodded, grateful.
‘But first there is something I must do. I must speak to Mutnodjmet. Do you know where her chambers lie?’
He shook his head.
‘It is kept a secret, even from me. But you know someone who probably could take you there.’
‘Khay?’
He nodded.
‘Ask him. And remember: what happened was not your fault. It was not my fault, either.’
‘Do you think the world will believe that?’ I replied.
He shook his head.
‘But it is the truth, and that is still something, even in this age of deceit,’ he replied, and then he turned away and left me alone in the King’s chamber, with the dead boy.
35
Why had no one ever mentioned Mutnodjmet? Not even Ankhesenamun, her own niece. And yet, all the time Nefertiti’s sister, the wife of Horemheb, the general of the Two Lands, had been incarcerated here within the Malkata Palace. Perhaps she was simply a poor madwoman, the living shame of her family, and so they kept her locked away from public sight. But she was nevertheless a connection between the royal dynasty and Horemheb. He had married into power, and now, it seemed, he acquiesced in his wife’s imprisonment.
I was considering these matters when the door of the chamber slowly, silently opened. I waited to see who would enter. A figure in dark robes moved silently across the stone floor towards the bed.
‘Stop there!’
The figure froze.
‘Turn around,’ I said.
The figure twisted slowly towards me. It was Maia, the wet nurse. Her contempt for me was undisguised. Grief disfigured her face. Then she carefully and precisely spat at me. She had nothing more to lose. I wiped the spittle from my face. She moved towards the dead body. She bent tenderly over her King, kissing his cold brow reverently.
‘He was my child. I fed him, and cared for him from the day he was born. He trusted you. And behold what you have brought back. I curse you. I curse your family. May you all be blighted as you have blighted me.’ Her face was livid with rage now.
Without waiting for, or apparently desiring, a reply, she began to wash the body with natron-salted water. I sat down upon a stool and watched. She worked with infinite care and love, knowing this would be the last time she could ever touch him. She washed his limp arms, and his dangling hands, taking each finger in turn, and wiping them like a helpless child’s. She passed her cloth gently over the unmoving, thin chest, wiping along the length of each rib, and over the narrow shoulders, and under the shallow armpits. Then she drew her cloth down the long length of the sound leg, and then gently around the festering wound of the broken one, as if he were still sensible of his pain. Finally she knelt at his feet. I listened to the quiet splash of the cloth in the bowl of scented water, the little cascade as she wrung it out, the steady repeated movement of the cloth between his toes, around his delicate ankles, and along the length of his dead feet, which she kissed as she finished her work.
Tears dripped from her chin as she wept silently. Then she folded his arms, in time-honoured fashion, ready for the gold crook and flail, the royal symbols of Upper and Lower Egypt, and of Osiris, the first King, Lord of the Otherworld, which others would place in his hands in due course. Finally from one of the clothing chests, she took a fine gold collar and a jewelled gold pectoral, with a scarab inlaid at its heart, pushing a fine red carnelian sun disc above it into the light of the new day, and placed it on his chest.
‘Now he is ready for the Controller of the Mysteries,’ she whispered.
And then she settled herself on a stool at the side of the room, as far away from me as possible, and began murmuring her prayers.
‘Maia,’ I said.
She ignored me. I tried again.
‘Where are the quarters of Mutnodjmet?’ I asked.
She opened her eyes.
‘Oh, now that it is too late, he asks the right question.’
‘Tell me why that is the right question?’
‘Why should I tell you anything? It is too late for me. It is too late for you. You should have listened to me before. I will speak no more. I will be silent for ever.’
I was about to insist when the door opened and the Controller of the Mysteries entered the chamber, wearing the jackal-headed mask of Anubis, the God of the Dead, and accompanied by his assistants. Usually the body would have been removed to an embalming enclosure, away from the living quarters, where it would be washed, eviscerated, dried out with salt, anointed and bandaged. But I supposed because Ay had insisted upon secrecy, he had ordered that the body must remain in the chamber. A lector priest began to recite the first instructions and magical utterances, while the lesser officials prepared the chamber with the necessary equipment–tools, hooks, obsidian blades, resins, water, salt, palm wine, spices, and the many bandages that would be used during the long process. They set the sloping wooden embalming board upon four wooden blocks, and then respectfully lifted the King’s body and laid it out there. Later in the long ritual, the embalmed body would be dressed in a shroud, and then bandaged; and then, for this King, priceless jewels, rings, bracelets, collars and magical amulets, many containing spells of special protection, would be secreted within the folds and layers of the fine linens, with utterances and spells to accompany each action–for every action had to adhere precisely to the traditions if it were to have value in the afterlife. Finally, the death mask would be fitted, so that this last face of gold could identify the dead man, and allow his ka and ba spirits to reunite with his body in the tomb.
The Controller of the Mysteries stood at the foot of the embalming table, looking down at the King’s body. Everything was ready for the work of purification to begin. Then he turned his gaze on me. I could see the white of his hidden eyes through the elegant holes in the black of his mask. In the close silence, all his assistants turned to stare at me. It was time to leave.
36
I knocked on the door to Khay’s office. After a moment his assistant answered. He glanced anxiously at me.
‘My master is occupied,’ he said urgently, trying to get between me and the door to the inner chamber.
‘I am sure he can spare me a few moments of his precious time.’
I walked through the antechamber, and into Khay’s office. His bony face was flushed. He was taken aback, and was not sober enough to cover it well.
‘The great Seeker of Mysteries makes his grand entrance…’
I saw he had a full cup of wine upon his low table, and there was a small amphora on its stand beside it.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you at this late hour. I thought you might be at home, with your family. Do you have a home and a family?’
He squinted at me.
‘What do you want, Rahotep? I’m busy…’
‘So I see.’
‘At least some of us are committed to a certain level of competence in our work.’
I ignored him.
‘I’ve discovered a very curious thing.’
‘Good to hear our Seeker of Mysteries has discovered something…’
His mouth seemed to be working slightly in advance of his brain.
‘Mutnodjmet resides within the walls o
f this palace.’
His chin was now raised, his eyes suddenly wary.
‘What bearing could that have upon your business here?’
‘She is Horemheb’s wife, and aunt to Ankhesenamun.’
He clapped his hands together, his face a caricature.
‘Such meticulous research into the family tree!’
But he was nervous, behind the irony.
‘So can you confirm she is being held within the palace?’
‘As I said, the subject has no bearing on the matter at hand.’
I moved closer. Tiny broken veins were pulsing delicately in the puffy, crinkled skin around his eyes. He was subsiding fast into middle age. The stress of his elevated position would not help, and he would not be the first to take to wine as a consolation.
‘I have a different opinion of the matter, and so please answer the question.’
‘I am not here to be interrogated by you.’
His feathers were up now.
‘As you know, I have the authority of the King and Queen to pursue my inquiries wherever they may take me, and I cannot comprehend why there should be such an issue about answering a very simple question,’ I replied.
He blinked at me, wavering slightly. Eventually he answered:
‘She is not being held, as you put it. She lives out her life in her own wing of accommodation within the comforts and security of the royal quarters.’
‘That is not what I have heard.’
‘Well, people do talk such rubbish.’
‘If it is all so nice and easy, why has no one told me about this?’
‘Ha! You are desperate for some direction in your futile investigation of the mystery. But it has now become quite pointless, and I would advise you against pursuing this line of inquiry.’
‘Why?’
