by Nick Drake
Inanna walked up and down imperiously, assessing us in turn. She gazed at Prince Zannanza, marvelling and whistling at his perfect white teeth, his smooth face, and his delicate hands whose unblemished skin showed a lifetime of luxurious leisure. She called out ribald comments, and her men guffawed, and slapped each other’s hands. Some approached the Prince aggressively, brandishing their weapons and mocking him. Inanna seemed curious about Nakht, too.
‘What is your name, Egyptian?’ She spoke in broken, strangely accented Egyptian.
‘I am Userhat,’ he lied.
‘What are you?’ she demanded.
‘I am a merchant.’
‘What do you trade? This delicate beauty next to you?’ she said.
‘He is a young scholar of the Hittite court, and we are accompanying him to Ugarit,’ he said.
She laughed out loud. ‘How beautiful are the young scholars of the Hittites! He must be very valuable.’ Nakht said nothing. She cuffed him hard across the face. ‘You lie,’ she said, simply. ‘I know who you are.’
But Nakht’s spirit seemed to revive within him, and he stared her down.
‘Egyptian armed forces will be looking for us, even now,’ he said. ‘The Hittite army will vow revenge against any harm that comes to this man, or us. You have committed a foolish crime against the empires of Egypt and Hatti, and it will be best for you if you supply us with horses and water, and release us now.’
During this, Inanna began cleaning her long nails with the tip of a dagger, shaking her head with amusement. But suddenly she pushed the point of the blade right against Nakht’s lips.
‘Open your mouth, Egyptian liar,’ she hissed. He complied, and she slowly pushed the blade deep into his mouth. He gagged, desperate not to have it cut his lips or his face open. His eyes blazed with the dishonour of it. She forced him down on his knees.
‘For lying to Inanna, I should slice off your tongue and your lips and make you swallow them. Your lies would not be so elegant, then.’
The moments passed in agony. Nakht tried to return her gaze, and waited for his fate.
‘You understand me now,’ she said. ‘It is I who speak the truth. You are all my slaves. Do not think of attempting to escape. Egypt is far away. You will not see your land again. Here lives death. She is standing before you now.’
And she withdrew the dagger and raised her fist, commanding a jubilant roar from her men.
Our path veered south, away from the westerly direction where the Way of Horus, and our chosen route to safety and home, lay. We were entering unknown territory. The chances of our being rescued or found were extremely slight. For who would venture into these wastelands, and even if they did, how could they locate us? Far in the distance rose a line of mountains, pale misty shapes like sleeping monsters in the afternoon heat. We continued through the barren wastes all day, and the sun was descending when we reached the grey and silver foothills that ran along the eastern slopes of the mountains. We slowly climbed up and up, until eventually we reached a cool, high, rocky pass which gave way to a spectacular vision: an amazing hidden valley falling away below us on the far side, its wide floor and lower slopes to the south packed full of intensely green fields, spreading as far as the eye could see to a far mountain peak, topped with snow, which shone with the light of the setting sun in the furthest distance. Everything was illuminated by the long, incongruously golden light of the early evening; after so long in the dry lands, it felt as if we had arrived in the Field of Reeds as depicted in our Books of the Dead. It looked like the promised bounty of the Otherworld.
Inanna raised her sword, rose up on her stirrups, and cried out her name down into the valley, where it echoed briefly. Her men yelled and whooped all around us, relishing the echoes that came back to them; and then we began the descent, following an established route down the rocky slopes, and around the scattered boulders. Soon we were riding down through densely cultivated fields. It was warmer on the valley floor. Poor, aggressive-looking farmers prostrated themselves in fear and awe, but turned their faces away from the sight of us, making the sign of the evil eye. Children ran alongside, until Inanna’s men chased them away, and they raced, shouting, into the fields to hide. Peasants were labouring everywhere. Countless white, red and pink flowers rose from the richly green plants. And then I was suddenly struck by a revelation: these flowers were poppies. They were growing opium. Fields of opium as far as the eye could see. I knew now where we were: in the lost valley from which Paser had warned me no one ever returned.
Near sunset, we stopped at a spring, to refresh the horses. Our hands were unbound and we were allowed to drink, too. The cold water tasted of rocks and herbs; I thought it was the finest drink of my life. I raised Simut’s head to help him drink. He looked feverish. I washed his head wound and his face, carefully. The air was fresh and scented. The evening shadows lay long across the valley floor. Inanna shouted an order, and a farmer and his wife, bowing low, hurriedly brought a straw basket full of glorious black grapes, just cut from a vine that grew in front of their hut. She threw a bunch to us, and we shared the luscious fruits hungrily. I suddenly felt a surge of gratitude and hope; we were not yet dead. I might see my family again.
‘Where are we?’ whispered Prince Zannanza.
‘We’ve been taken to these people’s heartland,’ said Nakht, quietly. ‘Somehow they know who we are. They must know we’re more valuable alive than dead. I imagine they intend to ransom us–for gold, no doubt.’
‘But who will buy us?’ he asked.
Nakht pretended he did not know; but I did. Aziru must have commissioned our kidnapping. I took Nakht aside.
‘Have you noticed the crop being grown here?’ I said.
He looked at me as if he did not understand the question.
‘I see flowers, that is all…’
‘It’s all opium!’ I said.
He gazed around him. ‘But this much opium would be worth more than all the gold in Nubia!’ he said, amazed.
But then a command was called; the guards retied our hands and threw us back into the cart. We travelled on into the darkness, through the endless shadowy poppy fields, now silvered in the moonlight and alive with activity. Hundreds of farmers, young men and boys in simple, rough woollen robes, working backwards, moved down the rows of plants, among the millions of seed-heads, slitting them open to release white opium sap. They shouted and called to each other from field to field, farm to farm, and from one side of the valley to the other in the dark.
The moon was high in the starry night sky, and we were shivering in our light robes when we finally arrived at our destination, a fortified stronghold of low, flat-roofed mud-brick buildings gathered together within a large walled compound. The place was a mixture of opulent booty and filthy chaos. Several old decapitated heads, disfigured from the hungry attentions of birds, were stuck on poles on either side of the entrance gate. Crudely butchered goats and ducks were roasting over open fires, attended by hunched women, their faces hidden inside their headscarves. Dark figures moved malevolently around the campfires, gnawing on the bones of roasted animals, drinking deeply from wine vessels, and laughing at dirty jokes or picking fights with each other. Captured men, women and children served them, and were kicked, beaten and abused for their pains. Animals and naked infants wandered freely about the compound, chewing on discarded bones or howling hopelessly. Cats and dogs stole whatever they could find. There was also an intense, bitter stink in the air, which came from a pair of mangy, apathetic desert lions captured in a cage.
Inanna strode ahead, and everyone bowed to her. We were pushed and kicked behind her, stumbling in the dark. Inside, smoky bowls of oil gave off a poor light. Richly inlaid furniture and statues, lapis lazuli and turquoise amulets and jewellery were heaped up casually, as if their variety, huge value and rarity were meaningless. In the side rooms, I saw men and girls lying on couches, obviously in opium trances. The place was dismal, and the air itself seemed corrupted.
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nbsp; We were dragged into a large interior courtyard lit by torches. The ropes binding our wrists were kept tied. We were forced down on to our knees, amid much shouting from Inanna’s men, who crowded around, cursing and spitting on us. Now that the attention of our kidnappers was elsewhere, I began to try to loosen the inept knots that bound my hands.
Inanna shouted, and her men were silenced. I wondered how she could exercise such unquestioned authority over these men. They cringed under her command. Without her, I had no doubt they would have torn us to pieces. I worked one finger gradually inside the knot of the binding.
Inanna had Prince Zannanza brought forward. She gripped his head, turning it from side to side, and watching how the fear played across his features.
‘What will she do to him?’ whispered Nakht.
‘She won’t harm him, he’s the prize,’ I replied.
‘Are you afraid of a woman, pretty boy?’ Inanna asked the Prince. He didn’t know whether to nod or disagree. But when she produced a small knife with three blades–exactly like those I had seen the opium farmers using as they cut the seed-heads of the poppy plants–he began to howl, a high-pitched cry of pure fear that provoked delight in her men, who laughed, pointing and yelling obscenities. Inanna held the blade right next to Zannanza’s face, and encouraged her men to start to chant. He was terrified. Her face was lit red and gold by the flickering light of the fires. Suddenly she brought the blade quickly upwards, expertly slashing the Prince across his perfect cheek. The men roared. Three lines of bright red instantly appeared, and blood began to drip down his chin, and on to the ground. He wailed in distress. Inanna leaned forward and licked the blood off the Prince’s jaw. He recoiled in disgust, and spat in her face. She stared at him, her eyes as cold as a snake’s, wiped the spittle from her cheek, and then punched him hard in the face. He collapsed to the floor, and several of the men began kicking him as he coiled into himself.
Finally, the knot binding my hands loosened. I worked my wrists against each other, enough to open up a length of rope. I ran forward, tearing it off. Prince Zannanza’s attackers weren’t expecting me. I grabbed the sword of one of them, kicked the others away, and found myself standing over the beaten body of the Prince, screaming at them like a Theban street fighter. The courtyard was silenced. Several of Inanna’s men surrounded me, drawing out their swords, moving around me, closing in, ready to go for the kill. It was better to attack than defend. I clashed swords with the two in front, while trying to defend my back from the others. Prince Zannanza cowered next to me, trying to keep clear of the slicing blades. I managed to score a cut on the arm of one of the attackers, and with a renewed roar of rage he went for me, while the others backed off to watch and enjoy the spectacle. We fought across the courtyard, and the crowd made way for us. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Prince Zannanza being bound and tied again. I was for a moment off-guard; my opponent’s sword suddenly sliced towards me sideways. I jumped back, and then, as his sword carried on through its arc, I saw my chance and plunged mine into his undefended chest. The roar of the crowd faded. The man retched up blood. My sword came reluctantly out of his chest. The man still was not dead. He stared up at me with contempt, choking and muttering, struggling to breathe.
Inanna was suddenly standing beside me.
‘You must finish what you began,’ she said.
I had no choice. I raised my sword once more, and thrust it down into the man’s chest again. He scrabbled on the ground, muttering, as if trying to claw back the last moments of his life, until finally he let go, and died.
Inanna appraised me with new interest. Several of her men ran forward to apprehend me, but she shook her head. I thought I saw a touch of amusement in her wild eyes. She raised her three-bladed knife and held it close to my face, as if daring me to attack her. Her expression was enigmatic. The men started to chant again. But suddenly she began to dance and chant, whirling in circles, clapping her hands, and crying out, invoking a Goddess or a spirit of darkness. The men shouted encouragement. And then just as suddenly she stopped, right in front of me, and shouted something in a language I could not understand. And then she kissed me full on the lips.
29
Sunlight broke in splinters through the slats of the battered wooden door. We slept or dozed on piles of filthy straw, and were thrown only gnawed bones and dirty cooking pots from which to eat the burned scraps; there was a jar of stale water in the corner, and a cracked chamber-pot. We had not washed for several days now, and already the chamber-pot in the corner was overflowing.
Nevertheless, my stomach rumbled incongruously. Hunger is no respecter of disaster. Prince Zannanza still lay turned to the wall, hiding his disfigured face. The ruin of his beauty seemed to cause him more distress than the fear of losing his own life. Nakht had been unable to console him. Simut stirred, and groaned quietly, and raised himself slowly to sit next to me. I passed him a dish of the stale water and he drank slowly.
‘We’re in trouble,’ he said, quietly, wiping his mouth.
I nodded in agreement.
‘No one knows where we are,’ I replied.
‘Even if they did, what could they do?’ he said. ‘We could be held here for months, and meanwhile, Ay must be dead by now, Horemheb will march on Thebes, take power from the Queen, and there’s not a thing we can do about it… We’ve failed.’
We were interrupted by voices outside the door. The door slammed open, and a couple of Inanna’s henchmen entered the cell. Prince Zannanza huddled deeper into his corner. They made some extravagant joke about the stink. They were munching on legs of roasted meat, luxuriating in the good food and our hunger. We watched them with hatred. When they’d chewed off as much as they wanted, they threw us the bones–as if we were dogs. Prince Zannanza grabbed one quickly, and began gnawing the tiny scraps that remained. I picked up another bone, and threw it back with all my strength in their faces.
‘Bring us food fit for human beings,’ I shouted. They just laughed. So I grabbed one of the discarded cooking pots they’d thrown into the cell, and advanced on them, whirling it around my head. They retreated, laughing, and slammed the door shut. I threw the pot, but it just clattered uselessly against the door.
‘Why has that murdering bitch taken a shine to you?’ asked Simut, darkly.
‘It’s not my idea of a good time,’ I muttered. ‘Next time they come back, we could attack them together, make a break for it, steal four good horses from under their noses, and be out through that gateway in a moment.’
‘And then come back with an Egyptian division and raze this place to the ground, and her in it…’ added Simut, for good measure.
‘We’re locked in a cell, we have no weapons, we have no knowledge of this valley, and even if we did escape, we would be hunted down very quickly,’ said Nakht.
‘So what do you suggest?’ asked Simut angrily.
Nakht stared at him.
‘I suggest you remember who you’re talking to,’ he said. ‘I am still in command of this mission.’
Simut said nothing.
‘They’re going to kill us all,’ said Prince Zannanza, quietly, from his corner. Simut rolled his eyes, but Nakht, once more the diplomat, turned to console the Prince.
‘You are far too important for that. You will be ransomed, I assure you. The Queen of Egypt will soon know we are missing. I was to have sent fast messengers at every stage of our journey, to keep her informed of our progress. She will interpret our silence, and she will have some knowledge of where we disappeared.’
Simut and I exchanged a brief look. There was absolutely nothing Ankhesenamun could do to save us. Our mission was secret. She had no troops to send out to rescue us. Only Horemheb had his divisions in the north. And help from him would spell death. We were on our own.
‘Your father will also know we are missing,’ continued Nakht to the Prince. ‘He will have had spies prepared along our route, to watch your progress. He will be very angry. He will come to rescue you.’
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Zannanza stared at Nakht disconsolately.
‘My father despises me. I appal my brothers. None of them will rescue me. They will simply cultivate the advantage of my death for their own ends. The Crown Prince was always opposed to this alliance. Now he will be able to claim my father was wrong to trust Egypt. The King will be shamed before his people, and he will easily be goaded into adopting my brother’s plan to renew Hittite attacks upon Egypt. But what does that matter to me? For I will soon be dead.’
And he turned again to face the wall. He was right. If any harm came to the Prince, then the Hittite kingdom would make good on its threat and take revenge against Egypt. The war of the last thirty years would seem like the prelude to a far greater calamity. Egypt would be held responsible. We would all be held responsible.
‘We are still alive for a reason,’ I said.
‘And what is that?’ asked Simut.
‘There are two possibilities. There are two men who would wish to destabilize the prospect of peaceful relations between the two empires by means of the Prince’s death. One is Horemheb himself…’
‘Horemheb would never commission the Army of Chaos to undertake such an act of kidnapping and assassination. If he had knowledge of our mission, and our return route, he would simply do it himself,’ said Nakht.
‘I agree. So that leaves Aziru,’ I said. ‘Aziru hates Egypt because his father was executed by Akhenaten. Aziru is the King of Amurru. Aziru has changed allegiance from Egypt to the Hittites. Aziru has almost certainly maintained secret contacts with the Army of Chaos. He wants us.’
‘Aziru will be dead by now. My request to the Hittites was absolutely clear,’ said Nakht.
‘But how can you be sure the Hittites have done what they said they would do? What if they have not assassinated Aziru? The Crown Prince proved himself a strong ally of his, and the Crown Prince now has the upper hand with his father,’ I said. ‘Aziru is probably still alive. And if he is…’ I left the thought unspoken.
