The Mask of Ra

by Paul Doherty

  Amerotke glanced back to the quayside where the imperial war fleet lay berthed. Hatusu and her council were now hastening back to Thebes ahead of their victorious army. She intended, in the words of Sethos, to deliver judgement on those rebels and opponents back in Thebes. The troops now saw her as a god, divinely touched, King and Pharaoh, and her word was law. Even Senenmut treated her more warily while Omendap, recovering from the murderous assault about which he could tell them nothing, deferred to her in every matter.

  Hatusu had not physically changed. Her eyes would still crinkle up in amusement. She could flirt with the men but these were weapons, devices. Even dressed in a sheath of linen she emanated a power. Her moods were fickle, as if she had studied the hearts and souls of men and knew how they worked. She could, in a matter of moments, turn from coy temptress to petulant girl. When her head went down, her lips tightened and she looked from under her eyebrows, a chill descended; Hatusu would brook no opposition. She carried the crook and the flail. All Egypt, all peoples of the nine bows should tremble before her. She had hardly talked to Amerotke except once, after the others had left the tent, when she’d risen and caught his wrist.

  ‘You received no reward, Amerotke, for what you did.’

  He looked back but didn’t speak.

  ‘But you want no reward?’ she teased. Her hand went up to his shoulder. ‘This is your reward, Amerotke. You are my friend. You are Pharaoh’s beloved.’

  Amerotke had bowed at the supreme tribute any Pharaoh could bestow: to be called ‘friend of the King’ was life-long protection, amnesty and pardon for what was in the past and what might happen in the future. His clumsy reply, however, was blurted out before he could stop it.

  ‘Your majesty,’ he declared. ‘You have my soul, my heart; but both will always try to follow the truth.’

  Hatusu smiled and, taking his hand, kissed the back of it.

  ‘That’s why you are my friend, Amerotke.’

  Hatusu had also shown the troops her vengeance. Nebanum had died under a hail of rocks. More prisoners had been sacrificed. The Mitanni camp had been ransacked and chariot squadrons despatched into Sinai, to regain the mines, reorganise the garrison and launch raids of terror, fire and sword into the Land of Canaan.

  ‘Teach those rebels a lesson!’ she had proclaimed. ‘Let my name go forth to the ends of the earth! Let them know there’s a power in Egypt!’

  The enemy dead had been collected. The death toll had risen to thousands; line after line of stinking cadavers stretched out in the sun. Hatusu had ordered the penis of every enemy soldier to be cut off and collected in baskets.

  ‘Send them to Rahimere!’ she demanded. ‘Let him and the people of Thebes know the extent of our victories!’

  No one had objected. It was customary for the right hand to be cut off but Hatusu’s grisly gift was a reminder to all of them how she had struck at the world of men, turned everything on its head. The emasculation of her dead enemies served as a grim reminder to Rahimere and his gang of the horrors yet to come. The strong-arm boys had shown no qualms about their bloody task. If Hatusu had told them to climb to the sky and grasp the sun, they would have obeyed. Hatusu was not only their Pharaoh but their goddess, beautiful, terrible, blood-thirsty.

  Amerotke sighed. The fleet had stopped at Sakkara where Hatusu was now holding court receiving officials, commanders from the local Nomachs. She accepted their obeisance and gifts, proclaiming her power, confirming her authority.

  This visit to the pyramids was Meneloto’s idea. Four days had passed since they had left the battlefields, the skies still dark from the black smoke of the funeral pyres. Meneloto would always visit him by night. He would squat in the shadows and tell how he had escaped from the Amemets and travelled into the Red Lands where he had met a group of mercenaries. This group had joined the royal army as it marched north.

  ‘I trust you, Amerotke,’ Meneloto had said. ‘Your judgement in the Hall of Two Truths was true and sound. However, while I have been out in the wilderness, I have reflected. All this began with Pharaoh’s visit to the pyramid at Sakkara. With his entrance through the secret doors.’

  ‘Secret doors!’ Amerotke had exclaimed.

  ‘At the time I thought nothing of it,’ Meneloto confessed. ‘The pyramids, we know, are riddled with galleries and secret passageways. I thought divine Pharaoh was visiting some shrine or had even stumbled on secret wealth. I am a soldier, Amerotke, I follow orders.’

  ‘How often did he go?’ Amerotke asked.

  ‘Three, four times. Ipuwer and a small cohort took us to the Cheops pyramid. They waited outside. We went up the steps, in by a small door in the north face and then through a secret gate. I stood guard while divine Pharaoh and Amenhotep went further.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘We must visit there. We must return! Discover what lies at the source of all this.’

  ‘And me?’

  ‘You carry the royal cartouche,’ Meneloto said. ‘You enjoy divine favour. No questions will be asked. You are the judge of my case. And there’s something else?’

  ‘What?’ Amerotke asked.

  ‘Among the camp followers hide the Amemets. I’m sure of it. Like the rest of the jackals which follow the army, they may have lost some of their pack in the battle but they have gained tremendous plunder.’

  ‘They are probably here for that.’

  ‘No. They must be here for something else.’

  Amerotke walked away from the curtain wall which surrounded the pyramid, looking out across the rocky ground. He wished Shufoy was here. Ever since he had left the royal camp he had felt a prickle of fear. Was it his imagination or was he truly being followed? Or was it simply this holy place? These mysterious shapes, the pyramids, the mortuary temples, the mastabas, the causeways and, in the far distance, the luminous, brooding, sand-dusted Sphinx which stared sightlessly out over the desert. The whole place held an atmosphere of dark menace.

  ‘Health and prosperity!’

  Amerotke whirled round. Meneloto stood, a shadow in the poor light. He’d come along the wall, slinking like a cat. Amerotke grasped his outstretched hand. Meneloto stared back over his shoulder.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I am uneasy,’ Meneloto admitted. He gestured with his head. ‘The guardian priests are sleeping off their cheap beer. I feel as if we are being watched. Shadows …’

  He drew closer. Amerotke smelt his wine-drenched breath, the tang of onions.

  ‘Do you believe in ghosts, Amerotke? That the shadows of the dead survive and have an existence of their own?’

  Amerotke tapped the side of his head. ‘I have enough ghosts in here.’ He made to turn but Meneloto caught his arm.

  ‘Your wife, the lady Norfret?’

  ‘She is well,’ Amerotke said. He went to go on but Meneloto held him fast.

  ‘I can read your heart, Amerotke, I am sure half of Thebes has. When you were hand-fast, betrothed to Norfret, I was a callow officer. I paid court to her.’

  ‘And?’ Amerotke asked coldly.

  ‘She liked me,’ Meneloto replied. ‘She liked me very, very much but her heart and body are yours, Amerotke.’ He walked on by. ‘You worship the truth,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘so accept it for what it is!’

  They entered the pyramid complex, winding their way through the narrow muddy lanes. A guardian priest was aroused. There were protests and objections which died on the old man’s lips as he saw, in the flickering torchlight, the royal cartouche. A woman’s voice called out but the old priest snapped back and muttering under his breath he led them out until they stood at the base of the towering pyramid.

  ‘Why now?’ the priest whined. ‘It will be light soon!’

  ‘Why not?’ Amerotke jibed.

  He grasped the torch from the priest’s hand and began the long, hot climb up the crude steps to the entrance in the north face. The priest followed. The doorway had been hollowed out. Inside smelt musty, dark. More torches coa
ted in pitch were lit. The priest crouched down at the entrance.

  ‘I’ll wait here,’ he said fretfully.

  Amerotke and Meneloto, carrying a torch in each hand, entered the pyramid. The air was hot and oppressive. The silence seemed to hold terrors of its own as if the dead were gathering, watching with unseen eyes. They walked along the main gallery until at the end they turned left and went down some steps.

  ‘The place has been open for centuries,’ Meneloto said, his voice echoing off the granite rocks. ‘Robbers and thieves have looted it to their hearts’ content.’

  ‘How do we find our way out?’ Amerotke asked.

  ‘Divine Pharaoh worried about the same,’ Meneloto replied. He led Amerotke to the wall and held up his torch. ‘See the arrowhead marks.’

  At first Amerotke couldn’t but then he did. They were cut in the shape of a leaf or arrowhead and pointed back to where they had come. Meneloto moved further along.

  ‘Look, here’s another one. They cover the pyramid. Cheops, the builder, was not only Pharaoh but a wizard. The pyramid has a labyrinth of galleries and passageways. Some of them lead nowhere. Others simply take you round and round till you drop in exhaustion. So, look for the arrowhead. If a wall carries these, you are following the line back.’

  They went on deeper into the pyramid. Amerotke found it difficult to control his fear and panic. The walls seemed to close in; sometimes they crouched as the ceiling swept down. This was no longer an old mausoleum, a ransacked tomb but, in Amerotke’s mind, a living thing, watching them, wondering whether to close in and crush the breath out of their bodies. Thankfully, Meneloto knew his way. Every so often he would stop to check the arrow points on the wall. Now and again they passed signs of others who had entered the pyramid. A crumbling skeleton lay in one corner, a knife broken at the hilt still grasped in skeletal fingers. They passed other grisly remains.

  ‘Thieves still take their chances here,’ Meneloto whispered. ‘And pay the price.’

  Amerotke was about to answer when he heard a sound, echoing through the corridors behind him.

  ‘What was that?’

  He turned. Meneloto drew his dagger.

  ‘I am sure,’ Amerotke insisted. ‘Someone shouted.’ He looked at Meneloto. ‘Are we being followed?’

  Meneloto pointed down at the sandy floor, at the trail of ash left from their torches.

  ‘Perhaps the priest follows? But come, we cannot wait!’

  They hurried on. At the end of one gallery Meneloto paused and sighed in relief. He approached the wall and pressed his hand against some of the stones. Amerotke lowered the torch and noticed scuff marks at the base of the wall. He heard a sound and looked up. The stones had moved. A hidden door had swung back on oily pins. A rush of cold air made the torchlight dance.

  ‘Wood,’ Meneloto explained. ‘Wood dressed and painted so it looks like rock.’ He doused one of the torches and stuck it very carefully beneath one of the hinges. ‘It can be opened from the outside,’ he said. ‘But I am not too sure from within. This is where I stood on guard. Divine Pharaoh and Amenhotep went further.’

  Amerotke followed him inside. The corridor abruptly dipped and they had to almost run to keep their balance. At the bottom there was nothing but a square chamber, rock floor and granite block walls.

  ‘Nothing!’ Amerotke remarked.

  However, Meneloto was already busy, examining the wall, pressing it with his fingers. Amerotke noticed how the sand in one corner was piled high, slightly patted down. He went over and started digging. Meneloto joined him. They found an iron ring in one of the flagstones. Sweating and cursing they pulled this up and pushed the flagstone aside. Meneloto lowered a torch to reveal a flight of jagged stairs stretching into the darkness. They hurried down. At first the light made some impression but the darkness closed in.

  ‘It’s like a chamber from the Duat,’ Meneloto remarked. ‘One of those dreadful rooms in the underworld.’

  He walked on, then cursed. Amerotke hastily joined him. They stretched out the torches; their eyes grew accustomed to the shifting shadows. Amerotke gasped as the torches flared. They revealed a long, vaulted chamber. Down both sides were great wooden pillars. Meneloto had walked into one of these. When Amerotke held his torch up he glimpsed cracks in the ceiling.

  ‘It must have begun to crumble,’ he said. ‘And these beams were put in to reinforce it.’

  ‘In the name of the lord of light!’ Meneloto exclaimed.

  He’d walked forward. Amerotke followed; at first glance, he thought countless pieces of rag hung from the ceiling but he could see they were strips of leather, each ending in a noose. From most of these hung decaying skeletons, sometimes only the skull, the chest cage and part of the spine. A few were empty, the bones fallen to the ground, mouldering into heaps of dust. They walked forward, past these grim tokens of the dead Pharaoh. The hall seemed to stretch for ever, full of these leather straps and their grisly burdens. As they walked grains of dust fell from the ceiling, smatterings of gravel.

  ‘Cheops must have built this,’ Amerotke mused. ‘He laid out a secret maze beneath his pyramid. He dug too deep and his engineers put these pillars in. Afterwards, to ensure no one knew what had happened, he hanged the slaves: deathly guardians of his secrets.’

  His words echoed hollow through the darkness. Amerotke found it hard to control his fear. He felt the dead close in around him. This army of the hanged. Were they now demons guarding this secret place? And what was Cheops so eager to hide? What was so special it had to be dug deep into the bowels of the earth and then sealed with murder? All around him lay the remains of those who had toiled here: shards of cloths and pottery, tools, broken dishes.

  They went further along. On each side rose the great wooden pillars and from the roof hung those dreadful leather straps. Underfoot they crunched bones, their sandals kicking away human dust. At last they reached the far wall. Amerotke gazed at the great inscription carved there. He held his torch up. The hieroglyphics were of the old period but he had studied them in the House of Life. He made out a few phrases: ‘Cheops, beloved of the lord of light, Pharaoh, King, wizard, he has placed behind this wall the secrets of time: the records when god and man lived in peace and harmony.’

  Amerotke mouthed the words for Meneloto to hear him.

  ‘The time of the first time,’ Amerotke continued his translation. ‘The Zep Tepi, when the being of light, the creator in the godhead, sent his emissaries from the heavens.’

  Amerotke paused. A sound came ringing through the chamber as if a weapon had been dropped, clanging through this place of death like the shrill of a trumpet.

  ‘Stay there,’ Meneloto whispered. ‘See what you can find.’

  Amerotke read on hurriedly, ignoring those hieroglyphics he could not understand or decode. Now he realised why Tuthmosis had changed. Beyond this wall were archives, manuscripts which talked not of gods but of one god, a being of light, all-powerful, all-creative. God had once walked with man; he had sent his messengers from the stars, from beyond the far horizon. That had been a time of plenty, when all creation was in harmony until man had risen and murdered these envoys from the stars, to whom they now gave names such as Osiris and Horus. Amerotke moved to see if he could discover the hidden door. His foot struck something which he picked up. It was a piece of metal, jagged and blackened but harder than Amerotke had ever felt. Not bronze, yet still a metal made by human hands. He struck it against the rock. The metal was unmarked but the rock was scarred. The sudden movement brought clouds of dust from the ceiling. He heard a sound. Meneloto came hurrying back.

  ‘We’ve been followed,’ he whispered.

  ‘Who?’ Amerotke urged.

  Meneloto grabbed him by the arm. ‘Only the gods of light know. We must hurry!’

  Amerotke recalled the Amemets. He took one last look at the inscription and, grasping the torch in one hand and the piece of metal in the other, followed Meneloto back along the chamber of death. Meneloto pu
shed him past the steps deep into the shadows. They tossed the torches into the dust just as the Amemets slipped like wraiths down into the chamber.

  Amerotke closed his eyes. He thanked Ma’at that Meneloto had left one of the torches fastened in a niche on the far wall as this glow of light lured the Amemets on. There were eight or nine in number, dressed like sand-wanderers in black from head to toe. They each carried a torch and a naked sword. They, too, stopped in horror, astounded by the sight before them. There were hurried whispers. Some were reluctant to proceed but the Amemet leader urged them on, pointing with his sword to the distant glow of torchlight.

  ‘Now,’ Meneloto whispered. ‘Let them go!’

  ‘But we must see beyond that wall!’ Amerotke hissed back.

  Meneloto shook his head.

  The Amemets were now moving deeper into the darkness. Amerotke realised that they had no choice but to flee. In the gloom he followed the former captain of the guard back up the steps. They were halfway up when a figure in black, torch in one hand, sword in the other, appeared at the top of the steps. He gave a cry and lunged at them with his sword. Meneloto tried to avoid it but the sword tip took him deep in the chest. He stumbled back, dragging the assassin with him, crashing into Amerotke. All three tumbled down. The Amemet was first on his feet but, in the darkness, he dropped his torch. Amerotke threw the jagged piece of metal, sending the assassin crashing back into one of the pillars. There was a creak, a snap. The Amemet clung to the column of wood; there was a crack, and the pillar slid away followed by a cascade of crashing masonry and rocks. At the far end the Amemets came hurrying back but the collapse of the pillar had caused a ripple. Other parts of the roof fell away, raining down rock and sand.

  Amerotke picked up the fallen torch and hurried back to Meneloto, who lay at the foot of the steps. He turned his companion over. The sword had taken him in the heart, and a deep cut where the jagged edge of the step had caught his head seeped blood. Amerotke searched for the life pulse but could feel nothing. A cloud of dust made him cough. From further down the chamber came the yells and screams of the Amemets. Amerotke put his hand on Meneloto’s face, whispered a quick prayer and raced up the steps. The chamber above was empty. Only a torch glowed where it had been placed in a wall-crevice. Amerotke took the flagstone, grasping it by the ring, pushing and shoving, coughing at the dust which now swirled up the steps. At last he had it in place, shutting off the terrible sounds from the pit below. He then grasped the torch and sped down the gallery, following the life-giving arrows to the door in the north face of the pyramid.