by Nick Drake
Nefertiti returned to the lit part of the chamber. I pressed the knife blade harder against the gently pulsing vein in Ay’s neck and was glad to feel, at last, a tremor of uncertainty. ‘I can kill him now, or we can hold him and return to the city. Arrest him; put him on trial for treason and murder.’
She looked at me sorrowfully, then shook her head. ‘Let him go.’
I could not believe she meant these words. ‘Who do you think had Tjenry tortured, mutilated and killed? Who do you think had Meryra burning in agony? He may not have committed the acts, he had his Chief of Physicians to do that; but he planned and incited them. And after everything he has done to you? This man has brought nothing but suffering and destruction, and you wish me to let him go? Why?’
‘Because we must.’
I threw the knife away in disgust. Ay slipped free of my grasp, and with his red leather glove slapped me hard across the face. ‘That is for having the temerity to touch me.’ Then he slapped me again. ‘And that is for having the temerity to make baseless and unprovable accusations.’
I stared at him, unmoved.
‘My daughter is an intelligent woman,’ he continued. ‘She understands.’
And then he smiled. I loathed that smile.
‘You have everything in the world,’ I said. ‘Yet some fury is raging inside you, eating away until you are a hollow man. Whatever it is, it will never be satisfied.’
Ay ignored my contempt. He bent down and scooped up a handful of dust, which he studied casually. ‘I never liked this place, and I doubt now I shall be buried here. Why do we need all those pretty pictures of the good afterlife? See how we depict our desperate hope for more life; rich fields and many servants to work them; great honour and position; the acquisition of wealth and property-the best the world can give, or that we can take. Yet it is all nothing but paint. We both know what happens when we die. Nothing. We are bones and dust. There is no eternal life, no Otherworld, no Field of Reeds. The sweet birds of eternity sing only in our heads. They are all stories we tell to protect ourselves from the truth. Now, if I had everything I would be able to change this dust back into life. I would buy more days and years as if they were grain, and I would live for ever. But it cannot be done. We cannot survive time. Only the gods are immortal. And they do not exist.’
He let the desert grit fall from his open hand onto the floor and turned again to Nefertiti. ‘There are more practical matters requiring our immediate attention. I offer you this: return to Thebes and I will negotiate a new agreement with the different parties. You will agree to return to the old ways. You will make a public worship of Amun in the Karnak Temples before a gathering of the Priests. This will be an absolute necessity. In return, your daughters will be allowed to live. Your husband will be allowed his life, and his crown, but he will have no authority. He may remain in this ridiculous city for all I care, worshipping the noon sun and the dust like the lunatic he has become. No-one will know. He will be granted sufficient attendants to care for him.’
‘And you?’
‘I am God’s Father. Doer of Right. I will remain.’
‘You are the society,’ I said. ‘The Society of Ashes. What an appropriate name. The men of ash.’
He smiled that calculating smile. ‘It is another show. A ceremony, if you like. But it works well. Men love the power of secrets. It is interesting what they will do, and give, to know the great secret of power. Seven gold feathers from the bird of rebirth. I believe you still have one in your possession. Please pass it to its rightful owner now.’
‘You left it there for me to find.’
He nodded, as if politely accepting a compliment.
I reached into my case, found the feather, and gave it to Nefertiti. She looked at it as if now she could see the future. As if now she knew the end of the story. And it was not what she desired.
‘Good,’ said Ay. ‘I will prepare for tomorrow. The people love you, daughter. Your strategy in outwitting your enemies was admirable. You have returned from the Otherworld. We will of course make use of this. You must become co-regent. You are a star among us lesser mortals.’
‘And if I refuse this proposal?’
He laughed quietly. ‘You are my child. I know you too well. Let us not waste time. I will make the necessary preparations, and await you at the palace for a public ceremony of return tomorrow. The guards will remain here to escort you back, when you come to the right decision. If you do not, they will follow my other orders. You may well guess what they are. Tomorrow is another day.’
‘You would kill your own grandchildren?’
‘Remember: there is no love, only power. As your maid knows. Don’t you, Senet? You should ask her about it. And about scarabs. I like to leave my mark, you know.’
He turned and left. No-one dared to speak. Senet shivered.
‘He has such power,’ she whispered, with loathing and misery.
‘Let me tell your story,’ I said, as gently as possible.
She nodded.
‘You killed Seshat.’
She looked up, but did not contradict me.
‘You brought her to her death. You brought down the blows upon her face. You left the scarab hidden on her body.’
She continued to stare at me.
‘You wore gloves to hide the damage to your hands. You let me think something was missing from the Queen’s jewellery. You let me believe the scarab belonged to the Queen. But the scarab was given to you by Ay. He told you to place it on the body. He said it was his mark, his sign. He was right. He is from the dung of the earth. The lowest of the low. Yet he pushes kings and queens like suns into the light of the new day.’
Senet glanced at the Queen, who gazed at her almost compassionately.
‘You fulfilled his instructions. You ferried the disguised girl up the river and then, in the dark, when she was not expecting it, you hit her. She would have been badly wounded by the first blow, but it must have taken much more strength of mind, as well as body, to beat her face off.’
She looked directly at me now. ‘It takes a long time to kill someone,’ she said. ‘The first blow was simple. But she would not die. She kept making noises, even though she had no mouth left. I beat her until she was finally silent. It took a long time.’
The chamber was silent. I continued with the story.
‘She dressed in the clothes you brought from the Queen’s wardrobe. She was wearing a headscarf, as required by the instructions. But you did not know, until I told you, who you had killed. You only knew it was a woman. As far as Ay was concerned it did not matter who died and who lived. But it mattered to you. You murdered and mutilated an innocent woman. Her family loved her dearly.’
‘So did I,’ she said, proudly. ‘I loved her with all my heart.’
They had been lovers. The simple words of truth.
‘Please show me your hair,’ I asked.
She nodded, slowly revealing a cropped head of auburn hair. Khety looked at me, understanding now.
Senet spoke again, this time to the Queen. ‘He knew everything. He could read my thoughts and dreams. He told me he would expose us, Seshat and me, not only to you, my Lady, but to the world. I could bear this. But then he told me he would have her killed if I did not do as he commanded. If I did not tell him everything. He told me what I had to do. He told me to take the sealed instructions and the clothes to the Harem as if they were from the Queen. A woman would be brought. And he told me what I must do. He told me we must not speak. He told me where to take her, and how to do what I was to do. What choice did I have? What would you have done?’
These last questions were directed at me, but all I could offer her was a look of understanding. She suddenly howled with grief, clutching and beating at her own head. ‘Hathor, Lady of the Sky, Lady of Destiny, she who is powerful, forgive me. I have killed the woman I loved! I acted out of love and fear. Now there is nothing but death.’
Nefertiti touched her on the shoulder, gently. ‘If you ha
d come to me with the truth I could have protected you.’
The maid looked up at her slowly. ‘He is greater than all of us. He is Death. Do you know he kissed me? On the lips. From that moment I was doomed.’ She picked up the dagger I had thrown away, walked out of the tomb chamber and disappeared into the darkness. I knew no-one could save her, and I knew we would never find her. I hoped the goddess Nut would spread herself over the girl and find some place for her among the imperishable stars.
Khety and I walked outside for some fresher air. It was the darkest part of the night, and the moon had sailed low and deep on the horizon. We sat down like two glum monuments.
‘I thought I knew Senet well,’ he said. ‘When did you work it out?’
‘I knew there were strange and missing elements to her story. But her grief betrayed her.’
He nodded. ‘That man is a monster.’
‘I don’t believe in monsters, Khety. That makes it too easy for the rest of us. Ay is one of us, in the end.’
‘That makes it worse,’ he said.
I had to agree.
Nefertiti came out from the chamber. Khety moved away respectfully, leaving us alone. I had things to say now.
‘That was quite a story you told me, when we first met, about your father and your family. You fooled me well.’
She looked at me calmly. ‘When you are born without parents, you spend all your time imagining them. You imagine them as perfect people. To make up for all the things that didn’t happen you dream up all the stories, and the stories seem real. Until one day…’
‘The truth.’
‘Yes. I imagined my father as a good man, a wonderful, kind man. One day I believed he would come to rescue me. I believed he would take me up on his white horse and we’d ride away together, for ever. Safe.’
‘I could have destroyed him for you.’
She paused, thinking. ‘No. You could have killed him, but then he would still be inside me, inside my head, for ever. That is worse, perhaps. Perhaps all I can do is forgive him. For what he has done to me. For what he has done to others. If I can do that, then he has no power over me any more.’
I was again amazed and appalled. ‘Forgive him? He’s used your life, his own child’s, as a means to an end, as a way to power, and he’s threatened to kill you and your children. There is no love in him.’
‘That does not mean I should not forgive him. Love begets love. Hate begets hate. Revenge begets revenge. The choice is mine.’
‘So you will accept his demands? Will you keep the feather?’
‘I must. There is no choice. This is the destruction of all we have worked for; it is the end of the dream of a better way. But I warned you: the world makes its demands upon us, upon me, and I cannot say no. I have enough power to save those I love, and to influence the course of the future. I have a responsibility to the future.’
Then a thought came to me very clearly. ‘I will not see you again.’
She took my hand in hers. ‘I will not forget you.’
We sat there for a long time, together.
42
Well before dawn, in order to return without being seen, we descended from the tomb chamber and began to walk across the chilly dark plain towards the city and an unknowable future. I glanced across at Nefertiti, the Perfect One, who walked beside me now. She looked calmer, resolute; her eyes were raised, looking ahead steadily. Perhaps knowing the truth was easier, for all its horror, than living with uncertainty. The older girls stumbled beside us, still half asleep, and Khety and I carried the younger ones on our shoulders, lolling in and out of their sweet, strange dreams. Akhenaten shuffled along looking down at the dark, arid ground. Ay’s guardsmen followed behind us at a little distance.
Nefertiti chose to return to the North Palace, the family’s countryside retreat set apart from the rest of the city and its suburbs. It was not well fortified, and it lacked a resident barracks, so the security would be weak. But she said she had her reasons, and besides, its isolation was an advantage. Then Meretaten and Meketaten chimed in, suddenly awake, insisting also on the North Palace so that they could visit their pet gazelles.
From a distance, all that could be seen of the palace was an endless high mud-brick wall which seemed to enclose a vast area of land running down to the bank of the Great River. There were no windows in the walls, and when we arrived we found the solid timber gates shut tight. I knocked as loudly as I dared. The sound seemed to travel far and unnaturally loud in the pre-dawn quiet. Eventually I heard a rattling and a groan, and then the small gate window opened. An old man blinked cautiously, then, recognizing the early callers standing in their dusty royal robes with a start of wonder and awe, began praying loudly. There was more fear than reverence in his eyes. I had no patience for this, and thumped on the heavy doors until he opened them. He prostrated himself and continued praying, so we stepped over him and moved into the palace precinct. He got up and followed us, telling us that the place was empty but being defended, single-handedly and with honour, by him alone. ‘I am the only one remaining here, all the others have fled, but I knew, I knew you would return, and here I am waiting for you.’ He looked like a waiter expecting a tip. Nefertiti thanked him quietly for his loyalty.
Sand had piled up against the walls in the courtyard, and all the internal doors and windows remained shuttered. The Queen walked ahead, opening doors and passing through columned reception halls, deserted and echoing. Khety and I kept ourselves alert, for I could not be certain there were no hostile forces here, perhaps Horemheb’s. But we found no trace of anyone.
Ay’s guards had stayed at the gates, so Khety and I stood guard in the main courtyard while Nefertiti took the children into their chambers to rest and prepare themselves for the coming day. Akhenaten sullenly followed them. We observed the last stars retiring, and soon dawn’s high blue light began to fill the dome of the sky. Slowly the moon sank into the Otherworld. Dogs barked across the landscape, and the ceaseless chatter of the birds in the riverside trees began. Life was reasserting itself.
Then Akhenaten appeared at the door. He looked at his god, the Aten, now a sliver of red, as it appeared just at the rim of the eastern cliffs. But there was no jubilation or celebration in his expression. He raised his arms in silent adoration. It looked futile and mad. We averted our eyes, as respectfully as we could, hoping not to have to emulate him.
‘Come, I wish to show you something.’
He turned and shuffled back into the dusty hallway, and I followed, leaving Khety to remain on guard. We walked for some time until eventually we came to a splendidly carved double door. He threw it open, and insisted I enter first. I found myself in a tall, square chamber. It was open to the sky, and had only three walls on which an artist had recreated a vision of the Perfect Life. Kingfishers were depicted in mid-flight, their black and white wings scissoring the still air as they dived in and out of the ringed, lucid water; or alighted, momentarily but for ever, upon the nodding heads of the great papyrus stalks twice as high as a man. And then a strange thing happened: with a brief shrill cry a shape darted, on a flash of brilliant wings, into the chamber and vanished, just as suddenly, into the wall. What had I seen? I could not believe my eyes.
Akhenaten clapped his hands and laughed with childish pleasure at my amazement. ‘Nesting boxes, hidden in the walls! You see, even birds can be fooled by the greatest art. They believe they are in a real river!’
He was delighted with this make-believe world, but for me it was proof that his perfect city of paint and mud and light and shadow was just an illusion. I had seen the wrong side of it, I had seen how it worked, and I understood above all that it was built not for beauty or even for power, but for fear.
‘This is not all, there is more,’ he said, taking me by the arm, his eyes brimming like a lonely old man in an asylum.
The chamber opened on to a secret green world: a park full of fruit trees, plants and water channels. Like the Otherworld, it seemed to have no beg
inning and no end. In a penned area, young gazelles waited by long, carved feeding troughs. The troughs were empty. No-one was feeding these abandoned animals now. I found a store of grain and quickly filled the troughs, although to what purpose I had no idea. Surely these beasts would not survive for much longer amid this dereliction. I watched Akhenaten stroke the feeding animals with some deep need, talking to them quietly.
We moved deeper into his green world, and with his gold staff he pointed out all the beasts and the birds, reciting their names as if he were their creator. Then, suddenly, he was furious. ‘I created this world,’ he shouted. ‘This city, this garden! And now they will destroy everything!’
I nodded. There was nothing to be said.
The sun was moving into the House of the Day. I bade him farewell. He gripped my arm, stared me in the eye, and said, ‘May you breathe the sweet wind of the north and go forth into the sky on the arms of the Living Light, the Aten, your body protected and your heart content, for ever and ever.’ It was a blessing from his heart, and I was moved, more than I expected. Then he waved me away and disappeared slowly into his green world. That was the last I ever saw of him.
43
Nefertiti rode ahead in her chariot of gold. The older princesses rode behind her in their own smaller chariots. Their red and gold scarves flared out, fluttering like rare birds in the soft morning breeze. Khety and I followed them, flanked still by Ay’s guards and their silver arrows. The day, paradoxically, was exceptionally beautiful, as if the storm had polished the natural world, restoring it to its pristine state. The waters sparkled and the birds sang. The river glittered here and there beyond the trees. But as we moved onwards through the city, the human world looked very different. Fires had destroyed sections of the suburbs, leaving charred ruins. One area of storage buildings was still ablaze. People wandered aimlessly, their faces grey with ash. Dead bodies lay untended in passageways. I saw soldiers throwing corpses on carts, one on top of the other, without care or respect.
