Nefertiti rr-1

by Nick Drake

  Interestingly, Horemheb clearly did not possess such a feather. But I could tell from the way he handled it, moving it slowly in the light, that it held considerable attraction for him.

  ‘Who would possess such a thing?’

  He put it down with a reluctance that betrayed his desire to possess it for himself.

  ‘I believe seven such feathers are in existence,’ he said.

  ‘Who possesses them?’

  ‘At last. The right question.’

  I waited.

  ‘I am not going to do all your work for you,’ he said.

  ‘Let me talk something through, then. Let’s say there are men of great power, disposed against the changes.’

  ‘It is a revolution. Let us be precise in our language.’

  ‘These are men who stand to lose a great deal of wealth and power, men who inherit the world through each generation.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Families close to Akhenaten who will not, for one reason or another, benefit from the Great Changes.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Led by one particular individual.’

  He looked at me enigmatically. I decided to play my card.

  ‘Ay.’

  I let the name sit there, like the feather, on its own. He smiled, conspiratorially. I felt like I had won a round of senet against Thoth himself, the wise baboon. But the victory lasted only a moment.

  ‘You speak carelessly,’ he said softly, opening the door again. ‘If he were to hear of such a thought, he would be displeased. He is as close as possible to the King himself. There is not a hair’s breadth between them.’

  I was about to rise, certain the interview was concluded, when he spoke again.

  ‘Let me just offer you one clue before you leave. The Society of Ashes.’

  His tone was full of a concentrated implication, and there was something malicious in it. He was feeding me words with the intention that I unwittingly fit in with his plans.

  ‘The Society of Ashes? What is that?’

  ‘A mystery.’

  He picked up the feather, twirled it enigmatically in the light, and offered it back to me. I moved to the door and took it. He was smiling in the way men do who do not know what a smile is.

  As I passed him, I asked suddenly, ‘How is your wife?’

  For the only time in the meeting he looked unguarded for a moment. In fact he looked disgusted. Perhaps also a flicker of pain, quickly disguised, passed over his face.

  ‘My wife is none of your business.’

  The door closed in my face.

  34

  As we walked away up the street, Khety asked me what had happened. I found it hard to give him a concise account, for the truth behind the conversation-the things we could not talk about-was elusive. I asked him about the Society of Ashes. He had never heard of it. ‘It sounds like something aristocratic, one of those invitation-only, shake-hands-in-a-funny-way type of things.’

  ‘It’s connected somehow with the gold feather.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Because I showed Horemheb the feather, and almost immediately he mentioned the society. I feel a tingle at the back of my head. I just can’t quite…get to it.’

  The heat was now tremendous, and no northern breeze lightened its burden. We walked slowly in the shadows of the buildings, thinking and thinking as we made our way back along the side of the Royal Road. Wagons and chariots struggled for right of way with calls and curses from the drivers. The constant traffic was a sign of the closeness of the Festival. There was a nervous tension in the air you could almost taste, a mix of metal and dust and something else-fear. I remembered the excitement I had felt on the first day of all this, the unforgivable thrill at the prospect of mystery in such high places. What a fool I was. I had understood nothing.

  We walked out of the suburb. In the near distance stood the strange palace, square and squat and dark like a locked box. Curious, I made my way over towards it, Khety trailing uncertainly behind me. It looked abandoned. The great doors sagged slightly against each other. From inside came strange cries, like those of children, but wilder. Then came the questing, trilling call of a flute…and a repetition of the same cry.

  I pushed the door cautiously, and it swung back heavily on its hinges. There was no sign of anyone. We moved up some marble steps into a large courtyard open to the sky. A dry fountain, stained with what looked like centuries of grey and white bird-shit, stood in the centre, and from it ran four low canals of stagnant green water. Over the open roof a web of netting had been strung, and here and there lengths of cloth, once boldly coloured, now faded, were laid out to provide shade. Under the arches of the courtyard hung many cages, some empty, some still containing little birds. Suddenly a parakeet, on brilliant wings, dashed across the empty space, squawking as it went. His activity seemed to spark off the others, and the air filled with a chaos of calls.

  In the middle of all this a voice called out, ‘Who’s there?’ An old man stood up slowly from his bench in the shadows and shuffled over towards us.

  ‘We heard the cries…the door was open,’ I said.

  ‘So you just thought you would come in and satisfy your curiosity.’

  ‘Who lives here?’

  ‘No-one. Not for a year now. Someone has to look after the birds. No-one else cares about them.’

  He called out, and the parakeet fluttered down from its perch. It landed, a storm of greens and golds, on his shoulder and nibbled appreciatively at his hairy ear. Then it looked up at us and let out a terrific aria, as if imitating some highly trained singer who might have performed here.

  ‘Who used to live here?’ I asked again.

  ‘A queen. Well, she was almost a queen, for a time. I wonder if her name is still known now that she is no longer a favourite.’

  ‘What is her name?’

  ‘Kiya.’

  The bird repeated it with the sing-song call of a disappointed lover. I had not heard of her.

  ‘What happened to her?’ I asked.

  The old man shrugged. ‘She fell from grace. Power is like fire. It consumes everything. And when it is gone, all that’s left is ash.’

  He spoke as if this could happen to any of us at any moment, and we too would turn into ash and shadows. I looked about at the faded, failed grandeur of the place. How quickly the present becomes the past.

  We left him there, with his birds and their fading calls, returned to the barque and set off back up the river towards the central city, no northern breeze helpful in our single sail, the sun magnified by the water, burning our faces and heads. We shaded our eyes as best we could and kept close to the eastern bank whose overhanging trees afforded occasional shade. But as we approached the main dock, a line of papyrus skiffs manned by uniformed and armed soldiers prevented all traffic from getting closer. The water around the dock had been cleared of traffic and we could see occupying this bright clearing an exceptional ship of state.

  It was enormous, at least a hundred cubits in length, with two deck-houses, and stalls for chariot horses at the deck level. Above those, reached by a staircase-stairs on a boat! — were elaborate accommodations and porticoes built out on slim columns. A floating palace. The hull curved in a vast, elegant shape up to gold lotus-buds, topped with an Aten disc. A large protective Horus eye was painted on the prow. Streamers ran from prow and stern. There were at least thirty rowers on either side, their sweating heads just protruding above the gunwales. The vast blue sail, decorated with a pattern of gold stars, hung from a mast that ran in height almost to the equivalent of the full length of the ship, and along two long yardarms. A golden falcon stood on the top of the mast. Priests holding wands and fans were lined up on deck. An orchestra must have been hidden out of sight, for the sounds of their music came to us across the water.

  There were few such ships in the fleet. I had seen others before, in Thebes, and had once even toured The Beloved of the Two Lands while it was in dock. But this w
as something else. Only a very, very important person could travel in it. Ay. It had to be him.

  The ship, with an attendant flotilla of lesser craft to guide it, slowly and perfectly negotiated its arrival at the dockside with hardly a bump. I was desperate to see what this man looked like, who carried such mystery and precipitated such fear. The boat deck was now crowded, not only with Priests and sailors, but also with dignitaries and officials who had ascended the gangplank as soon as the ship had docked. Among them I struggled to make out a figure to whom they all bowed. I could see nothing. It would be a long time until the jam of river boats was cleared.

  I began to move our boat to the shore, trying not to attract the attention of the soldiers on the river, who, in any case, were also fascinated by the spectacle of such an arrival. The bank was no more than twenty cubits away, and I hoped it would seem we were just drifting away from the main body of onlookers. We managed to secure the barque to the trunk of a palm, and stepped into the warm, shallow waters.

  ‘I hate getting my feet wet,’ said Khety.

  ‘Then you should have taken an office job.’

  We made our way up a service path that ran beside a little watercourse. Here, among the foliage of the trees, all was suddenly quiet and still.

  ‘Where are we?’ I asked.

  ‘We’re just below the main gardens of the Great Palace.’

  ‘Terrific. Guards everywhere. How do we get onto the road without being seen?’

  ‘Like this.’ And with a quick hop Khety leaped up and shimmied over a wall. I thought, not for the first time: the security in this place is shocking. I made the same movement, although I confess with less elegance.

  I wish I hadn’t, for as I dusted myself down I looked up to see two armed guards facing us. The alleyway in both directions was empty but for a child playing with a ball. Khety looked at me, I looked at him, and then, as if we had been operating in this way for many years, we launched ourselves simultaneously at the two men. The force of my first blow sent my opponent staggering back off-balance and off-guard against the wall opposite, where I swiftly followed up with a couple of hard punches to the gut and the face. He parried the second, and I felt a blow to the side of my head: he had clouted me with his wooden baton. But no pain came, and before I knew what I was doing I had picked up the baton from the dust where it had fallen and was beating the man’s head and body. He curled into a tight ball, shivering and scrabbling to shield himself from the blows, and I heard the crack and snap of his finger bones as I beat down hard. Suddenly blood spattered brightly against the wall and the dust, and his little cries and moans ceased. I realized that Khety was holding back my arm, saying, ‘Enough, enough, let’s go.’

  We abandoned the two inert bodies to the flies and the sun and ran to the top of the alleyway. I knew even then it was at least unwise to have left them there, but what could we do? The child with his ball had vanished.

  The alley gave on to one of the thoroughfares leading to the Royal Road. Winding our linens around our heads again, we passed into the busy passage. Everyone seemed to be moving in the same direction, keen to witness the spectacle of the arrival of Ay. We emerged onto the Royal Road at a place between the Window of Appearances and the Great Aten Temple. The road itself was empty, in that odd way when everything is pushed aside to make a clearing for ceremony. Crowds had gathered along its sides, though, and many more observers crowded onto balconies or huddled at windows and on roofs. There must have been thousands of people, but they were so quiet, so hushed, it was possible to hear the birds chattering.

  Up to our right, the air suddenly seemed to charge itself, and a team of chariots appeared, the hooves of the horses clattering on the stones in time with each other. Trumpets blared like the announcement of battle, with the crowds on either side of the road like puzzled opponents. Khety and I pushed our way through for a closer view and saw, as the cavalcade slowed down, in the central chariot a tall, haughty man dressed in a white tunic and modest amounts of gold and jewellery.

  His face was bony. Condescension seemed to seep from every pore. His manner suggested his utter contempt for the world in which he was being forced to make an appearance. The cavalcade came to a stop. Dust whirled in the hot air. Ay turned slowly to stare balefully at the Window of Appearances, which at this moment was significantly empty. With barely disguised reluctance, while stage-managing an expression of sombre respect across his tight face, he lazily raised his arms to the empty space and waited. We too continued to stand, observing the man at the centre of this.

  Then Akhenaten himself appeared suddenly in the Window, accompanied by his girls, Meretaten taking the place her mother should have occupied. The crowd instantly noticed the absence of the Queen. A man next to me whispered to his wife, ‘See? She is still not there. The child stands in her place.’ The wife made a gesture for him to be silent, as if this too were a treasonable thought.

  The two men looked at each other for a few moments, and it seemed as if an understanding of great complexity was taking place between them. Akhenaten made no gesture of recognition of the raised and respectful arms for at least a minute. ‘Not a hair’s breadth between them,’ Horemheb had said. But it did not immediately seem so. Ay maintained his posture, his head now bowed, without wavering. The two men stood in their attitudes, and I thought how odd was the balance of power between the Great Akhenaten and the fastidious courtier, older in years. Then Akhenaten took a magnificent gold and lapis lazuli collar from a cushion and lowered it ostentatiously around the thin, waiting neck of Ay. This was a signal for a fanfare, and Ramose himself stepped forward to recite the liturgy.

  It was during this recitation that I noticed there were spots of blood on my sandals. Then Khety surreptitiously nudged me and nodded. Coming through the silent gathering, at some distance yet, a set of guards. And with them, riding on the shoulders of another man, presumably his father, the small boy with the ball. The boy was looking through the crowd. As I turned my head he saw me, and pointed.

  At this moment the liturgy finished, and the cavalcade moved on towards the Great Aten Temple with a noise of trumpets and hooves and obedient cries of celebration from the crowd who had raised their arms, as one, to the sun disc. Through this forest of conforming arms, which had the added advantage of screening us, we pushed our way out. I glanced back and the boy’s mouth was open, shouting, but drowned out by the general noise. We moved faster, trying not to make ourselves too obvious, but it was clear from people’s surprised faces that we were behaving strangely. No-one stopped us, though, and we reached a passageway and hurried down it.

  ‘Where shall we go?’

  ‘The safe house?’

  I turned and looked again, just as the boy and the guards reached the top of the passage. He pointed, and his yell came loudly down the narrow walls. We ran. Khety knew his way through the back streets, but we were disadvantaged by the regularity of the city’s layout: where were the crooked labyrinths of Thebes when I needed them? People turned to watch us run, and we had to double back when we saw soldiers moving up the road towards us. I have never before been on the wrong end of a chase. Always it is the Medjay in pursuit; now I was the pursued, running for my life.

  We ran between the half-built shadows of the shanty town, and it seemed we had escaped our pursuers. The alleyway of the safe house was deserted. With a quick glance either way, we slipped behind the tatty curtain into the room, and bolted shut the heavy wooden door. We lay there, trying to suppress the jagged gasping in our aching chests; we were making too much noise in the listening silence.

  ‘What do we do now?’

  For the first time since I had met him, Khety looked honestly frightened.

  ‘I don’t know!’

  We just looked at each other, praying to the old gods that some inspiration or luck would come to us. But there was nothing. We were on our own.

  ‘We could go to my family.’ Khety looked at me, frightened but brave. I was grateful to him for the hon
ourable intention with which he made the offer. He meant his family would hide us. But the risk to them was far too great. Discovery would mean torture and execution for the men, mutilation and slavery for the women. I would not expose them to such a catastrophic fate, even though so much was already at stake.

  Perhaps I saw a blur of a shadow of a movement, perhaps I imagine this only now, but suddenly a bronze axe-head shattered the middle panel of the door. It stuck there, and I could hear the curses of the man trying to free his weapon and the barked commands of his superior officer. We ran up the ladder just as another blow from the axe-head smashed into the door. As we reached the roof, I could hear the cries of alarm from along the street. I peered over the rooftop into the street and saw it was full of soldiers: the whole street was being ransacked by heavily armed guards. I recognized the woman with the smashed foot; she was arguing and gesticulating with the guards, pointing to the rooftop where we had conversed. I could not blame her. She had to survive. Then the axe flashed in the sun as it rose and fell again, and I heard the door come away with a groan and a slam.

  We ran across the roofs, vaulting the dividing walls and pulling down lines of washing. A few old women watched us, but made no move. I followed Khety, who as usual had a better sense of direction. I looked back, and already there were many troops on the rooftops, running after us.

  ‘Split up!’ I yelled at Khety. He stopped running. ‘Where will we meet up?’

  ‘You know where!’ He gestured across the river. ‘After dark!’ He pointed for me to run in one direction, grinned as if this were some wild adventure, and set off in another.

  I ran. Almost immediately I jumped across a little crevasse between two shacks, missed my footing, clung to the far wall, and had to haul myself up, scraping my hands and knees. The troops had divided into two, and my section was closing on me. I had lost sight of Khety, which was good: he must have made it to ground level and perhaps evaded capture. I ran on, throwing behind me whatever I could grab-pots, crates, firewood-to trip them. I planned to get to the streets and mingle again with the crowds. But up ahead of me, on the next roof, armed Medjay swarmed up the steps, followed by a familiar figure with close-cropped metal-grey hair, standing taller than all the others. His lion’s eyes focused on me, a little smile of anticipation flickering on his cold face.