Hope for the Best

by Jodi Taylor

  I indicated the hatch. ‘Gentlemen, are you ready?’

  I didn’t bother waiting for a reply. Mikey sprung the hatch and I climbed up, heaving their bloody stupid ladder as I went. There surely must be some good reason why they lugged this bloody great heavy thing around with them when surely a neat, folding aluminium affair would have been easier, lighter, more convenient, and less prone to braining anyone unfortunate enough to be passing below.

  I climbed out into the brilliant sunshine, down on to the gritty sand and waited at the bottom for them to join me.

  They made a business of straightening their robes and turbans which fooled no one. They were using the time to pull themselves together and get their bearings. I gave them a while, because I still remembered my first jump. The heart-thumping excitement. The trepidation. The anticipation. And underlying everything – the faint fingers of fear.

  Eventually, when I judged they were ready, I said softly, ‘Gentlemen.’ I waited until I had their full attention and then stepped aside to show them.

  There it was – directly in front of us.

  Jebel Barkal. The Sacred Mountain.

  It’s not a big mountain as mountains go, but it’s loaded with symbolism, mostly due to its shape which – depending on which direction you were approaching it from, or even how much barley-beer you’d been drinking – resembled either the Uraeus as depicted on the crown of Egypt, or a giant penis, or a sitting god, or a man wearing a crown. Obviously both the Kushites and the Egyptians believed in getting good value from their landscape.

  Now, with the rising sun sweeping across its flanks, it was easy to see any or all of those shapes in the constantly changing shadows. The mountain glowed gold, peach, crimson and purple. A fitting home for a god.

  At its base reared any number of magnificent public buildings, built of a combination of the ubiquitous mud bricks and local sandstone, gleaming red in the sunshine and each one far grander and finer than anyone who thought only Egypt could manage this sort of thing would have believed. Chief among them and towering over everything was the magnificent Sanctuary of Amun with its tall pylons, colourful carvings and bright pennants snapping in the crisp, early morning breeze. The pylon was more than three storeys high and today its gates stood open, giving a view along a pillared avenue, bright with colours, ending in yet another colossal pylon behind which towered yet another pylon. Behind that, if memory served, stood the enormous hypostyle hall and the inner sanctum: the holy of holies where the god lived. The sanctuary towered above everything except the mountain behind it – from which it seemed to have grown.

  Kings – Egyptian and Kushite – came here to be crowned. To give their reigns validity in the eyes of the god. At the height of the ceremony, the king would make his way to the inner chamber – the place where the god dwelt – to meet with him alone. This was their most sacred place.

  Other gods had their temples here as well. Isis, Hathor and so on. I could have stared all day, but I had a job to do. I turned to Wolfe and Khalife.

  ‘I’m not sure how much you want me to be a tour guide. I can explain what you are seeing here or I can shut up and leave you to form your own impressions. It’s up to Mr Wolfe.’

  ‘Information – any information – is always useful, Dr Maxwell.’

  ‘Well,’ I gestured at the mountain. ‘This is Jebel Barkal. The Sacred Mountain. One of the Thutmoses – I can’t remember which one – decreed it to be the home of the mighty god Amun. An act which came back to bite Egypt much later when the Kushites claimed Amun had declared them the rightful rulers of Egypt. Their king, Piye, swept into Egypt to begin the 25th dynasty. There are statues of him everywhere. And of the women he left behind to rule in his name. You can tell they’re Kushites because of their crown – a cap designed to represent the shape of the mountain and the double Uraeus of Egypt and Kush. All the statues have what’s known as the Kushite fold. As do you. Apparently, they were very proud of it.’ I watched Mr Khalife raise his finger to his face. ‘And of their Kushite roots. Every single one of them was returned here for burial.’

  I gestured at the largest building. ‘The Sanctuary of mighty Amun-Ra. Only the foundations and the pillars are of sandstone. All the rest is mud brick. Like all the buildings around here – including the pyramids. The temple complex is vast – hall upon hall – going right back to the mountain itself.

  ‘The avenue of kneeling ram-headed statues . . .’ I gestured, ‘. . . are the personal symbol of Amun, and lead to the huge wooden doors over there. There are also temples to the female gods, Hathor and Nut. Whether gods or mortals, the Kushites did not discriminate between men and women.’

  I gave them a moment for that revolutionary concept to settle.

  ‘What are those people doing?’ enquired Mr Wolfe.

  A number of broom-wielding slaves were engaged in an unending battle against the encroaching sands.

  ‘Keeping the desert at bay. Keeping the temple clean out of respect for the god. Speaking of which . . .’

  I had no idea to which particular religion Messrs Khalife and Wolfe subscribed but, speaking as an historian, it never does any harm to pay one’s respects to any local deities who might be knocking around and I needed all the help I could get. I mean, you’d have to be a complete idiot to announce there was no such god as Amun-Ra when standing only a couple of hundred yards from his sacred mountain, wouldn’t you?

  I turned to the mountain, placed my hand on my heart and made the gesture of respect.

  Wolfe and Khalife watched expressionlessly.

  I said softly, ‘Women touch their heart – men touch their brows.’

  Somewhat to my surprise, they did so. Good – they weren’t stupid enough or arrogant enough to assume they knew everything. I began to feel faint stirrings of optimism. This could turn out well.

  So, the appropriate god propitiated, I led them away for what, with luck, would be a little harmless tourism.

  Yeah – right.

  The early morning breeze was blowing stinging sand at us. Simultaneously and quite instinctively, I think, they wound the long ends of their turbans around their faces. I myself was enveloped in what appeared to be some sort of tablecloth. Don’t ask me why the teapot terrors would own such a thing; I certainly didn’t want to dwell on some of the uses it might have been put to. I pulled it across my face and we set off.

  We wandered around the public buildings. Mr Wolfe punctuated our perambulations by enquiring as to the portability of any treasures within. I told him what he wanted to hear, secure in the knowledge it would never come to that.

  We pushed our way through gathering crowds and wandered the streets pretty much as the fancy took us. Away to my left, I could see a line of greenery which must be cultivated land lying alongside the River Nile. Kush was rich and fertile, easily able to support kings, priests and its formidable army. We weren’t close enough to identify the individual crops but I could see clumps of date palms silhouetted against a cloudless blue sky. Small groups of hobbled donkeys stood beneath them, taking advantage of the shade. Early morning it might be, but the sun was already very bright and I was beginning to sweat under my tablecloth.

  The town was waking up. There was lots of early-morning bustle. Shops were opening around us with goods being laid out ready for the first customers. Those who had no shopfront exhibited their goods under the shade of convenient trees. Awnings were being slung across narrow streets to ward off the white-hot sunshine.

  A small group of people had gathered outside the fishmonger’s, waiting to get their fresh fish before it went off in the heat of the day. Ancient shutters slammed back against the walls. Women and children were drawing water from the public well in the open space in front of a minor temple. Up at rooftop level I could hear someone shaking out their sleeping mats. Sand and dust filtered down. Others were sweeping it off their doorsteps. The narrower streets were unpav
ed and sand and grit had piled in heaps against the walls, driven by the incessant wind.

  Off to my right, more lines of donkeys were being watered and a small boy was tossing handfuls of some sort of green stuff at their feet.

  We wended our way through the residential streets of mud-brick houses, most of which were single storey with high windows and flat roofs. One seemed to grow from another. I wondered if each sprawling unit housed generations of the same family. All living on top of each other and with never a moment’s respite. I was congratulating myself that neither Leon nor I were burdened with relatives when I remembered St Mary’s. All of us living on top of each other all day long. I did have an extended family after all. I wondered again how they were getting on.

  After nearly an hour, we had circled back almost to our starting point. The Sanctuary of Amun.

  ‘Pyramids,’ said Wolfe, looking to his left. ‘They are smaller than I expected.’ He sounded disappointed.

  ‘Smaller and steeper,’ I said, ‘but many more of them.’

  Khalife never stopped looking around, missing nothing. ‘Is something about to happen?’

  He was right. Something was going on. The slaves had finished brushing sand from the approaches to the temple and were clearing away their gear. More were approaching bearing garlands of flowers which they began to set up around the entrance. Men that I assumed were lower-ranking priests appeared. They wore the usual fine, light linen tunics. Slaves wore loincloths of what looked like coarse wool. Some were virtually naked, their skins leathery from the fierce sun. Most of the people, men and women, seemed to wear some kind of linen tunic, but not all. Looking around at the people beginning to assemble, this was a very cosmopolitan society. Kush was a trading nation and there were representatives from many different countries. We weren’t conspicuous at all. There were groups of obvious Egyptians, with their black eyes and wigs. There were nomads from the desert, muffled in long, flowing robes. Some had only their eyes visible. Were they in town for the ceremony or just passing through? Sadly, I’d never know. This was not a fact-finding tour.

  The space in front of the temples was beginning to fill up with people as the hard, white sun climbed higher in the cloudless sky. I wondered if this was a regular ceremony to thank the god for the new day before the noonday temperatures drove everyone back inside again, or whether today was a special day for the god.

  Many people were pouring into the space now. Men, women and children. Most wore flowers in one way or another – a garland round their neck or a wreath in their hair. Even some slaves had a bedraggled bloom behind their ear. Some of the children held carefully assembled little posies. There was excited chatter everywhere. Bakers, brewers and confectioners around the square were doing a roaring trade. All the signs were here. This was a holiday. All right, not a funeral procession, but as good as.

  Behind me I could hear some sort of commotion. Horns sounded and men shouted. I spun around to see what was happening. The Time Police and their bi-hourly appearances were never far from my thoughts. Do I mean bi-hourly? I never know whether that means two hourly or twice an hour. And I didn’t want to call up Mikey. It might not be important but I wasn’t sure I wanted Wolfe to know she and I could talk to each other. Not that it mattered because we’d be gone in less than an hour, regardless.

  I was recalled to the present by a series of horn blasts. One after the other. There was nothing melodic about them at all – their tone was strident and attention-grabbing. All chatter stopped and people moved back, opening up a wide space in front of the Sanctuary of Amun.

  The enormous wooden doors were being thrown open. Straining slaves pushed them back against the walls. The entrance was in deep shadow and I couldn’t see anything. No one else was looking anyway. All eyes were staring in the opposite direction. Craning my neck, I could see some sort of procession approaching, threading its way between the buildings to the sound of pipes and cymbals, slowly making for the ram-flanked ceremonial avenue. This was good. This would give Wolfe and Khalife a bit of spectacle to look at. Trust me, there’s nothing wrong with the Kingdom of Kush – nice people, magnificent architecture and so on – but, as Mr Wolfe had several times pointed out, it wasn’t Egypt. I’d overestimated the interest they would have in observing their possible ancestors. There’s obviously no money to be made out of ancestors.

  ‘What is happening here?’ enquired Mr Wolfe.

  ‘Some sort of religious ceremony,’ I said, quietly. ‘Dedicated to Amun-Ra, obviously. He’s the big cheese around here. I think the procession is arriving.’

  It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him whether he wanted to give it a miss and have a poke around the town while the bulk of the people were observing the ceremony. The unspoken implication being that there might be something interesting – all right, valuable – to pick up, but before I could say anything, the temple guards appeared, each with his own wicked-looking spear and khopesh, so I decided not to offer them the option.

  The procession was headed by a huge ram, his coat immaculate, whiter than white. They must have been up all night preparing him. A garland of flowers hung around his neck. His impressive horns were tipped with gold. He would be the sacrifice. Over the clashing cymbals and blaring horns, we could hear the cheers of the people as they threw down their flowers for him to walk upon.

  The ram seemed calm enough. He’d almost certainly been given drugged food. He walked placidly to the temple, his oiled hooves sending up little puffs of dust and sand. Two garland-laden acolytes paced solemnly alongside, each holding him on a golden rope, although he wasn’t giving any trouble.

  Behind him came half a dozen white horses, similarly garlanded. They weren’t as tall as modern horses, but they were very good-looking animals, small heads on arched necks, prancing along on delicate hooves. Unlike the Egyptians who only used horses for pulling chariots, the Kushites rode theirs. As a nation they were, apparently, quite fond of horses, and the Pharaoh Piye, having conquered Egyptian Hermopolis, had had some harsh things to say when he saw the condition of the royal stables and the horses therein. These, however, were beautiful beasts. Only the best for the great god.

  Behind the horses came a long line of donkeys – whitish and not quite so beautifully presented. I wondered if there was some kind of animal hierarchy here. And bringing up the rear, to my amazement, some ten or twelve camels. Supposedly, there were no camels in this area until the Persians introduced them around 520BC. I did think about sharing this fascinating piece of information with my travelling companions but something told me my enthusiasm would not be shared.

  Each camel was wearing an elaborate harness, decorated with coloured beads, strands of wool, flowers and ribbons. They plodded along, staring disdainfully down their nostrils and looking very unimpressed. Although, to be fair, it’s quite hard for a camel to look enthusiastic about anything. Their enormous soft feet spread over the sand, which, despite the best efforts of the slaves, was already beginning to cover the paved court again. It was obvious the ram was marked out for sacrifice but whether the other animals were also for sacrifice, or only present to escort the ram to the god, or whether they were a gift to the temple was not clear. In the end, it didn’t turn out to be that important.

  With a final flourish of horns, a trill of pipes and a clash of cymbals, the procession halted at the entrance to the Sanctuary. The actual ceremony would be performed by the priest, in private inside the temple, but the dedication would be public.

  People shuffled into rough queues, clutching their offerings. Everything from gold to small loaves of bread. There were lots of flowers in the form of either wreaths or garlands. Little piles of grain were carefully carried in clay dishes. Many people offered up tiny, delicately carved wooden rams. This was the closest to the real thing a poor person could get and even that wouldn’t be cheap. Wood was expensive in desert cultures.

  All these were people’s gifts to
the god. Gifts representing their hopes and fears and their dreams. To protect a brother or a son in the army. To save a sick child. To ensure a safe childbirth. The people lined up for their votive offerings to be blessed by the priests and accepted. The air was heavy with the smell of dust and incense from the temple.

  Silence fell. The sun beat down. Sensibly, I stood in Mr Khalife’s shadow.

  Two figures appeared at the entrance to the temple. Both wore intricate headdresses of feathers. There’s a saying, ‘They dripped with gold,’ and in this case, the saying was spot on. Both Mr Wolfe and Mr Khalife instantly became much more cheerful. One figure was male and one female – the male on the right and the female on the left. They stood together, with equal status.

  A complete silence fell over the crowd. This was obviously a very holy moment. A holy silence to attract the attention of the god. The sacrifices would be dedicated, the rites carried out and then it would be everyone off for an early lunch.

  ‘What is happening?’ enquired Mr Wolfe again, reminding me I was derelict in my duties as tour guide.

  I whispered, ‘The animals will be dedicated to the god and then ritually sacrificed.’

  He lowered his voice. ‘To what end?’

  ‘It could be anything. To ensure the future prosperity of Kush. Ditto the Pharaoh Piye and his family. To ensure a good harvest. Or that the Nile will behave itself this year. Or that the livestock will be fertile. Or that there will be no sickness this summer. Or that the Assyrians won’t invade . . . anything, really.’

  He nodded gravely and turned to watch the crowd again. He seemed quiet and engaged. I began to wonder if I’d been worrying unnecessarily.

  Unfortunately, while I’d been talking to Mr Wolfe, I’d forgotten about Mr Khalife. In the 8th century BC we might be, but he hadn’t forgotten his primary function, which was to protect Mr Wolfe from any and all peril. Unfortunately, in my job there’s usually quite a lot of peril scattered about. I’d done what I could. I’d selected a peaceful country not in the middle of any wars. There was no current sickness. The country was prosperous and law-abiding. The people were pleasant. I thought I’d covered all the bases. Wrong again.