Nefertiti rr-1

by Nick Drake

  ‘How can I help?’

  ‘I want to pay a visit to the Medjay information archives. Can you help with that?’

  ‘Yes, but why?’

  ‘They hold information on everyone. On you, on me, on Ay, even on Mahu himself. We need to get deeper into the underworld of what’s happening here, so we have to know more about the plotters and conspirators and their secret histories.’

  Khety thought it through. ‘I have a contact, a scribe. He could get us in and help us find the relevant documents.’

  ‘Can he be trusted?’

  He grimaced. ‘He’s my brother.’

  ‘In these days no-one, not even one’s brother, can be trusted.’

  ‘He’s my younger brother.’

  ‘That makes it worse then: younger brothers often betray and murder their elders. Sibling rivalry.’

  Khety just laughed. ‘He likes music and reading; he’s not interested in politics. He’d rather spend his time in the library. Trust me.’

  Nefertiti entered the room. I confess I could not take my eyes from her. There was something incandescent about her presence.

  ‘This will not serve as a useful safe place for you both in the next days,’ she said. ‘However, Khety knows a house in the workers’ suburb-a secret location. I’m afraid it is not particularly comfortable. But I imagine no-one will think to seek you there. And I’m sure you can find a way to disguise yourselves among the arriving populations.’

  It was a sensible suggestion. The poor are invisible to the rich.

  ‘We will be, as the saying goes, poor men in the house of the rich,’ I said.

  There were no doors or windows to the outside world in the walls of this building. The only way out was down into the labyrinth again. So we bade a swift farewell and descended a set of winding stone stairs. This time plentiful lamps and rush torches illuminated the way. I noticed wonderful images on the walls-birds, animals and gardens lit up by an underworld sun and moon.

  ‘Khety, where are we?’

  ‘You remember when we went to the Queen’s House? And you sat in her chair and looked out across the river?’

  The low fort on the far shore. He had known all along.

  ‘If you are smiling that smug little smile of yours again, Khety, I’m going to push you down these stairs.’

  His laugh echoed away down several passageways that disappeared off into shadow. The last of the daylight slanted down to where we stood.

  ‘Well, as the adventurer said, “all paths lead somewhere”,’ he replied.

  ‘Very wise. But as I recall in that story the adventurer never returned home. Which of these takes us where we need to go?’

  ‘The passages are designed to trap intruders for ever. Fortunately, I know them like the back of my hand.’

  He nodded towards one of them. We each took a torch in our hands and set off in silence among the strange company of our footfalls and shadows. Soon we came to a junction. Khety hesitated.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just trying to remember the way.’

  He set off with purpose in one direction, then suddenly stopped. I walked into him.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘Sorry, wrong way.’

  ‘And you’re the man who’s going to help me save the world.’

  I knew we were under the river. Little gusts of hot wind, ghostly underworld breezes, tugged at the flames of our torches but could not extinguish them. I caught glimpses of more painted scenes on the walls, the spirits of the dead enjoying the delights of the Otherworld. We tell ourselves stories of happiness and liberty beyond the grave, but we build our temples and tombs in darkness, and frighten ourselves with fables of monsters and secret names. In the confident light of the torches and in Khety’s bright company, however, the passageways that had so alarmed me the previous night lost their power to conjure fear in my mind.

  After some time walking in silence we came to a long set of stairs ascending towards a dark trap door. Slivers of light cut through the wooden planks like long knife blades. We listened carefully, but could hear only a kind of shuffling and a snuffling; something like slow, clumsy dancers. With infinite caution, Khety lifted the trap door. The light dazzled us after our time in the darkness. He looked out carefully, then pushed back the door, and we pulled ourselves up into the daylight.

  The first thing that assailed me was the smell. Pigs. The rotting stink of old mud, old vegetables and pig-shit. They looked like a gathering of corrupt dignitaries, their undiscerning wobbly jaws not ceasing to chew as they observed us with only one question in mind: were we consumable? The sty was low, so we had to crouch as we hurried through it, holding our noses, trying without success to keep our feet out of the mess. We emerged into a fetid, narrow lane, detritus and human and animal shit gathering in the foul gullies to either side. Labourers were passing in crowds where the narrow passageway opened, some way along, on to a wider thoroughfare, and the noise of daily humanity from a better world washed over us. There was a doorway covered with a rotting tapestry directly opposite the sty, and we passed quickly across. We found ourselves in a hot, dusty storeroom piled high with rubbish, old jugs, jars, broken bits and pieces of everything. There was a further door that led into another room with two simple straw mattresses, a supply of water in a stone jar, and a box containing basic rations. A rickety old ladder with rungs missing led up to a door that gave on to the roof. Khety locked the front door from the inside.

  ‘Home sweet home,’ he said.

  Inside another box we found workers’ clothes, simple bolts of rough cloth and cheap rope sandals, together with more middle-class but undistinguished clothing, from which we could fashion our appearances as required. But first I wanted to go up onto the roof to get my bearings. I quickly pulled a relatively clean cloth around my head and shoulders, and ascended the ladder. I pushed open the roof door and carefully looked out. It was a view of the city unlike any I had noticed before. A chaos of adjoining roofs made up, in their crazy, improvised pattern, a kind of small shanty town. It was no doubt home to many of the invisible poor who kept the city clean and working. The heat shimmered in the air, and nothing stirred. The whole place had the abandoned feel of mid-afternoon, but it seemed lifeless too, lacking the intense colours of drying fruit and vegetables, the chickens scratching in their enclosures, and the daily washing hung from lines which characterized the rooftops of Thebes. No leaping children here, just a few old women moving about desultorily, their heads bowed to their perpetual labour, rearranging tatty clothing as it dried on boards or on lines in the bleaching glare of the afternoon sun. No-one took any notice of me.

  The best view was to the river, and in particular down to the long dock from which I had sailed with the hunting party only a few days ago. Now, however, instead of pleasure boats and singing young women, the whole dock was crowded with river traffic, and on the open water packs of boats jostled one another, waiting to land their various cargoes. It was like watching a slow, untidy battle from the curious and remote vantage of a fly.

  Some of the ships were carrying timber, stone, fruits and corn. From one, amid a fury of calls, cries and trills that made up an anxious music, appeared howling monkeys on strings, gibbering and shrieking with confused excitement, cages of coloured crying birds, trained hawks on gauntlets, and in a strong box a large baboon, staring out at this crude, noisy world with dignified contempt. Gazelles, antelope and zebra slipped and shivered on their neat hooves as they were roughly manhandled down the gangplanks. From another ship came a troupe of pygmies from Punt executing quick movements, walking on their hands, tossing one another through the air for the delight of the crowds.

  All of this for the Festival. The gifts, tributes and supplies of food and drink and entertainment from the Empire and beyond were starting to arrive in the city to support and satisfy the appetites of a unique congregation of the rich and powerful. It was an event none would relish but to which all would have been deeply offended not to be invited. To
be seen here, in state, participating among the great powers was a signifier of high status. And each king would bring his family, his retinues, his ambassadors and civil servants, their officials, their secretaries, their assistants, their assistants’ assistants, and then ranks of servants, in their own hierarchies. The city still did not seem ready for such a vast swelling of its population, and I imagined the crowds becoming so great that people would have to sleep in the desert, in the tombs above the city, or in the fields, like a plague of locusts.

  There was a noise behind me, and Khety’s head appeared through the trap door. He joined me on the parapet.

  ‘Crazy, isn’t it, a jubilee festival now?’ he said. ‘I mean, it hasn’t been thirty years since the beginning of the reign.’

  ‘Akhenaten desperately needs to assert his status and confirm the new capital,’ I responded. ‘And he knows that in a crisis one must celebrate a festival or start a war. Even if he refuses to accept it, his chief advisers know things are in danger of falling apart in the country, and outside it. He has domestic and foreign problems, and the harvest last year was poor again. People are not being paid regularly. They’re worried, and if he’s not careful they’ll get angry. He needs to demand homage in public from everyone, not least his internal enemies and foreign allies, and to reassert his territorial claims and rights over the kingdoms of the Empire. But this whole spectacle will be undermined unless the Queen is restored. No wonder he’s so desperate.’

  The prospect of a major celebration brought back memories for me. ‘I was a young child during the last jubilee, under Amenhotep. People said it was unlike any other witnessed before. He ordered the Birket Habu lake to be created near the palace where he and the gods and the royal family could process on barges. Can you imagine, Khety, an artificial lake of that size? All the years of labour, all the lives sacrificed for one day of festivities. My father held me up on his shoulders so I could see above the crowds. It was all happening a long way away, but I remember a giant crocodile cutting through the water, its tail moving slowly from side to side, its eyes moving to and fro, glittering as if packed with broken glass, and its jaws, with great white teeth, opening and closing. Of course it had been constructed out of wood and ivory and some kind of clever mechanics, and built on the bed of a boat. But to my eyes it was Sobek-Ra, the crocodile god. I was terrified! And then came Amenhotep, on a huge gold barge rowed by many slaves, seated on a high throne, wearing the two crowns. And the gods, hidden in cabins, travelling on their golden boats from the east to the west. I could hardly breathe. Strange, the things that compel us. Now I would look at the same spectacle and see illusion, make-believe, a show. I’d see nothing but the crude mechanisms, the wealth and the engines of labour that work the scenes of the spectacle. Am I better off now, or was it better when I believed?’

  There was no useful answer to this question, and besides we had other thoughts to preoccupy our minds. We looked out at the panorama of activity below us. Among the ships just docking I noticed one remarkably fine specimen, distinguished by its elegant shape, the glossy perfection of its costly woods and inlays, and the glorious richness of its sails-a military ship of the highest class. Clearly this was transporting a VIP. Dockers caught the ropes cast out by its sailors, and deftly manoeuvred the ship into its place. Among the figures of the working sailors in their uniforms appeared another of stature, surrounded by officials. I was too far away to see him well, but he was accorded the utmost respect: there was a military reception and an official guard awaiting his arrival, no doubt sweltering under their umbrellas as they waited for the tedious business of docking to be accomplished. The sound of a fanfare came quietly but clearly across the hot, thick air as the mystery man stepped down into the throng.

  Khety shaded his eyes. ‘Horemheb.’

  I gazed at this figure who had suddenly assumed a great importance in my mind. As I watched, there was a moment of ceremony between the reception committee, the brisk, no-nonsense man, and the retainers who followed him at a respectful distance down the gangplank. Then he moved off through the crowds, his armed escort beating back with sticks and batons any careless person who did not instantly bow his head and make way.

  Khety, who could pass unnoticed in a crowd more freely than I could, departed to speak to his brother and find a means of access to the archives. After he left, I stayed watching on the roof as the cavalcade of materials and people continued to flow into the unfinished, soon to be overwhelmed city. And above us all the birds, circling; and beyond that the infinite opposition of the desert. I thought of my girls, and Tanefert. What were they all doing now? Were my girls asking about their father? Was their mother making up some story with her rich invention? Or were they just running around, or reading, or executing new acrobatic movements over and over and over until something was knocked flying?

  As I sat there pondering the imponderables of my life, a frail figure emerged onto one of the nearby roofs. She shaded her eyes and looked around, and when she noticed me she made a polite, deferential bow. I nodded back. It would do no harm, I thought, to discover more about this quarter of the city, not least because secrets and information are not the preserve of palaces alone, but are found equally in the most dismal of shanties. So I stepped over the parapet, making my way cautiously over the crumbling roofs-in places the dry reeds, bundled and plaited together, which served as roofing material had already broken or given way-and joined her on the opposite parapet. Her skin was darker than mine, her features nomadic, her dress clean but poor, adorned with a few trinkets of traditional style. She might have been no more than twenty years old, but hard labour had aged her well beyond that: as always the hands, with their callused skin as tough as hide, gnarled knuckles and broken nails, told the story. Still, there was life and humanity in her smile. We greeted each other.

  ‘I am from Mut,’ she said, by way of introduction.

  I knew of it-a desert settlement to the south-west, near the Dakhla Oasis.

  ‘I’ve never been there, but I enjoy the wine,’ I said.

  She nodded without comment.

  ‘Why did you come to the city?’ I asked her.

  ‘Ah. The city.’ She shaded her eyes and shook her head slowly. ‘My husband overheard a wonderful story someone was telling in the market, of the new capital, about the need for workers. He came home and told me, “We can escape, make something of ourselves.” I was afraid to leave everything I knew and cared for to set out on such a dangerous journey. We’d heard other tales of gangs of convicts and even the soldiers of the Amun Priests robbing travellers by night. But he wanted to go, and there was nothing for us where we were. So we surrendered all we possessed to a guide, who guaranteed safe passage. He told us about a green city of towers, gardens and ample work for all. Even I was beguiled by his words. We left, with our two young children. Parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters-we left them all behind knowing we were unlikely ever to see them again. We were five families who set out together that evening.’

  She paused for a moment, her eyes swimming with the memory of departure.

  ‘We travelled for days beyond telling. Then one evening we were surprised and surrounded by a band of Medjay guards. We were forced to march, and eventually they rounded up other straggling groups of desperate people from all over the Red Land. We were nothing but cattle. Cattle.’

  She held out her ruined hands in a gesture of helplessness.

  ‘Finally we arrived at the Great River. But all the sweet waters that flowed before my eyes could not have satisfied my thirst to return home again, and know my own hearth. We were shipped down the river to the city and set to work. We were not slaves, but we were not free men either. Men and women had to wait together every morning for the Overseer and his assistants to make their selections: who would work and eat, and who would not work and starve. Always the fittest and strongest worked, and while these lucky ones tried to bring supplies back in secret for the others, gradually those not chosen died away in the f
ilthy hovels where they were left to fend for themselves. I worked as a labourer. My children are now mixing the mud for the sun-dried bricks that, one by one, are building the city. My husband is now the foreman of a work gang. But it has soured his soul. He drinks. We fight. And now…’

  She gestured to her foot. I saw that it was bandaged.

  ‘It is broken?’

  She slowly unwound the stained linen and showed me the damage: it had been crushed by a stone building-block. The flesh was mottled blue and crimson and rotten yolk-yellow, the shape distorted, the toes curled into themselves. It looked to me as if the bones were smashed, the flesh rotting. She would have to lose the foot.

  ‘I am as useless now as a dancer with one leg.’

  It was tempting to read a parable of suffering and wisdom in her dignified face. But what I saw there was simply hopelessness.

  ‘I wish we had not come,’ she continued. ‘But what choice did we have? All we had left to sell was ourselves. And this is a world in which if you have nothing to sell, you die.’

  What could I do for this woman? Our green and gold world, our life of houses and linens and fine wines, is built on the invisible, inescapable labour of the multitudes. Not a new thought, of course. There had been many occasions in my life when I had been exposed to these unpleasant realities. My work had shown me day after day the effects of this poverty: in the crimes committed out of the despair of drink, in particular; the delirious exuberance, the indifference to cares, the sorrowful songs of misfortune soon giving way to irredeemable acts of rage and violence.

  We sat for a little while, listening to the birds’ free music. It seemed like a beautiful joke at her expense, a sweetness she could never possess; but she closed her eyes and drank it in like wine. I pressed upon her the only thing I could offer: a draught of water from the jar. She drank a few sips, grateful more for the offer than the thing itself. And then we made our farewells, and she hobbled away across the rooftops in the burning afternoon.