by Nick Drake
We docked at the vast palace jetty that spread all along the lake’s frontage. Copper bowls of oil on wrought stands burned, giving off a thick, sinister yellow and orange light. The palace guards bowed low as Khay and I stepped off the boat. The depth of their obeisance gave a clear indication of this man’s status here. In any case, he utterly ignored their existence, as these high-ranking men always do.
We set off down a long processional way, lit by lamps, and the welcome, familiar moon, towards the long, low silhouette of the palace complex, and then-my heart compelled by the mystery ahead, and my feet by necessity-we entered a great gloom.
6
The Keeper of the Royal Household took a lit oil lamp from a niche. Everything seemed hushed, lavishly decorated and sealed from the outside world. All along the corridor, down which we marched at speed, were beautiful statues and carvings set upon plinths. I wondered what went on in these side chambers; what meetings, what discussions, what resolutions with what great consequences reaching down through the hierarchies, and out into the unsuspecting and powerless world? We moved on, taking turns to the right or to the left, passing through high, echoing halls where occasional groups of officials conferred and guards were stationed, making our way deeper and deeper into the complex. It was a labyrinth of shadows. Sometimes a servant or a guard passed, their heads bowed low, pretending not to exist as they tended the lights of the oil lamps.
Chamber after chamber of walls painted with glorious scenes of elite pleasure and leisure-birds in the reed marshes, fish in the clear waters-appeared and disappeared in the light of the lamp. It would be difficult to find my way back. My footsteps sounded all wrong-a disturbance in the vast hush. Khay moved ahead on his costly, quiet sandals. I decided to make more noise, just to annoy him. He refused to dignify my behaviour with even a backwards glance. But it is strange and true that we can read a man’s face by the back of his head.
We passed swiftly through a checkpoint, as Khay waved away the elite guards of the royal quarters, and then he led me into the inner sanctum, along another high passageway, until finally we paused before great double doors of dark wood inlaid with silver and gold, beneath a carved, winged scarab. He knocked precisely, and after a pause the doors opened, and we were admitted into a large chamber.
Opulent surfaces and furniture were illuminated by large hammered bowls, set all around the walls, whose flames burned very still and clear. The furnishings and decor were immaculately restrained. Here, the room seemed to say, life could be lived calmly, with elevated feelings. But it also had the air of a stage spectacle: as if behind these glamorous facades one might discover masons’ rubble, painters’ brushes, and unfinished business.
A young woman entered quietly from the courtyard beyond the open doors, and paused at the threshold, between the firelight from the great bowls and the dark shadows that surrounded everything. She seemed to carry something of both with her. Then Ankhesenamun stepped into the light, closer now. Her face, for all its youthful beauty, was engagingly confident. She wore a fashionable, braided, lustrous wig that framed her features, a pleated linen gown tied beneath her right breast, whose flowing cut seemed to sculpt her elegant, neat form, and a broad gold collar, fashioned from row upon row of amulets and beads. Bangles and bracelets shifted and tinkled elegantly around her wrists and ankles as she moved. Rings of gold and electrum flashed on her delicate fingers. Gold disc earrings glittered in the lamplight. She had carefully painted around her eyes with kohl, and drawn out the black lines in a style that was slightly old-fashioned-I realized, as she gazed at me, the ghost of a smile on her lips, that she had deliberately made herself look very much like her mother.
Khay quickly bowed his head, and I copied him, and waited, as protocol demanded, for her to begin the conversation.
‘I am not sure if I remember you, or if what I remember is from stories I have been told.’
Her voice was full of self-possession, and curiosity.
‘Life, prosperity and health. You were very young, majesty.’
‘In another life. Another world, perhaps.’
‘Things have changed,’ I said.
‘Look up,’ she said, quietly; and with an enigmatic flash of her dark eyes, she turned away, expecting me to follow her.
We moved into the courtyard. Khay did not withdraw but followed discreetly, at a distance where he could still hear us, but pretend not to. A fountain trickled somewhere in the shadows. The dark air was cool and scented. She moved along an ornamental pathway, lit by more flickering lamps, further into the moony dark.
I remembered the little girl I had met years before: full of petulance and frustration. And here was an elegant and accomplished young woman. Time itself seemed to be mocking me. Where had the years gone? Perhaps she had grown up very suddenly, too quickly, in the way people do when devastating change falls upon them in youth. I thought of my own girls, their ease with their changing lives and themselves. They had no need, thanks to the gods of fortune, for such strategy and appearance. But they too were growing up, growing away, into their own futures.
‘So you remember me,’ she murmured, as we walked.
‘You had a different name in those days,’ I replied, carefully.
She glanced away.
‘I have had little choice in the matter of myself. I was an awkward unhappy girl, never much of a princess, unlike my sisters; and now they are all dead, it turns out I must be so much more. I have been reinvented, but perhaps I have not yet felt worthy of the role for which I have been-appointed. Is that the word? Or destined?’
She sounded as if she were talking about a stranger, not about herself.
We arrived at a long pool of black water at the centre of the courtyard, with oil lamps placed at each corner. The moon was reflected there, lilting slowly in the water’s dream. The place felt romantic, and secret. We strolled along the pool’s edge. In some way I felt we were moving towards the heart of the matter.
‘My mother told me that if I was ever in real danger, I should call for you. She promised me you would come.’
‘And here I am,’ I replied quietly. I had sealed her mother’s memory in a box in the back of my mind. It was too potent, and too hopeless, to do anything else. And the fact that she was dead now made no difference, for she lived on where I had no power to control her, in my dreams.
‘And since you have called for me, and I am here, you must be in real danger.’
A fish broke the immaculate surface of the water, and concentric rings spread out, lapping silently at the pool’s walls. The moon’s reflection broke apart, and then slowly unified again.
‘I am concerned by signs. Portents…’
‘I am not a great believer in signs and portents.’
‘So I have heard, and that is important. We are too easily alarmed, my husband and me. We need someone with less superstition and less fear. I think of myself as modern, as a person not easily frightened by things that are not there. But I find it is not so. Perhaps this palace does not help. It is so vast and empty of life that the imagination populates it with everything it fears. A wind blows from the wrong direction, down from the Red Land, and already I sense malicious spirits stirring at the curtains. These rooms are too big to sleep in without fear. I keep the lamps lit all night, I rely upon magic, I clutch amulets like a child…It is ridiculous, for I am no longer a child. I cannot afford to indulge the fears of a child.’
She looked away.
‘Fear is a powerful enemy, but a useful friend.’
‘That sounds like something only a man could say,’ she replied, amused.
‘Perhaps you should tell me why you are afraid,’ I said.
‘I hear you listen well.’
‘That is not what my daughters tell me.’
‘Oh yes, you have daughters. A happy family…’
‘It is not always as simple as that.’
She nodded. ‘No family is simple.’
She paused, thinking.
&nbs
p; ‘I was married to my husband when we were both very young. I was older by a few years. But we were children, united by the state for the purposes of alliances of power. No one asked us if we wished it. Now we are brought out like statues for state occasions. We perform the rites. We make the gestures. We repeat the prayers. And then we are put back inside this palace. In return for this obedience, we are given luxuries and indulgences and privileges. I do not complain. It is all I know. This beautiful shrine is as much of a home as I have known for many years. It is a prison, and yet it has felt like home. Is it strange that I should think of it that way?’
I shook my head.
Again she paused, thinking ahead.
‘But lately-I do not feel safe, even here.’
‘Why?’
‘For many reasons! Partly, perhaps, because I sense something changing in the atmosphere. This palace is a very restrained, highly disciplined world. So when things change, I notice at once: objects that are not where they ought to be, or that appear out of nowhere. Things that could mean nothing, and yet seen another way might imply something mysterious, something…And then, today…’
She ran out of words. Shrugged. I waited for more.
‘You mean the events at the festival? The blood…?’
She shook her head. ‘No. Something different.’
‘Can you show me?’
‘Yes. But first, there is something more I must tell you.’
She drew me down on to a long bench in the shadows, and spoke in a more cautiously hushed voice, like a conspirator.
‘What I am about to tell you is a secret known only to myself and a very few trusted men. You must give me your word you will keep silence. Words are powers, and silence too has its great power. Those powers are mine, to be respected and obeyed. If you do not, I will know it, and I will not spare your punishment.’
She looked at me gravely.
‘You have my word.’
She nodded, satisfied, and took a deep breath.
‘Tutankhamun will announce his coronation and his ascendancy to the kingship shortly. It would have happened today, after he had communed with the Gods. But that could not happen. Obviously. We were thwarted, on this occasion. But we will not be stopped. The future of the kingdom is at stake.’
She watched for my reaction.
‘He is already King,’ I commented, carefully.
‘But in name only, for Ay is Regent, and he holds all power, in reality. His government is the ruling authority of the kingdom. It remains invisible, and under that cloak he does as he wishes, while we are merely his puppets. So we must grasp power now. While there is still time.’
‘That will be very difficult. And very dangerous.’
‘Obviously. So now you understand better why I have called for you.’
I felt the shadows of the palace darkening around me with every word she spoke.
‘May I ask a question?’
She nodded.
‘Can you be sure Ay would not support him in this?’
Ankhesenamun suddenly looked as lonely as any woman I had ever seen. It was as if the door into her heart had been blown open by a gust of wind. In that moment, I knew there was no way back from this strange night, or escape from the dismal labyrinth of this palace.
‘He would destroy us both if he knew.’
There was both determination and fear in her eyes.
‘And can you be certain he does not know?’
‘I cannot be certain of it,’ she said. ‘But he has shown no sign. He treats the King with contempt, and maintains him in a dependent childhood he should have outgrown. His authority depends upon our subservience. But he has made the most dangerous assumption: he underestimates us. He underestimates me. But I will not endure it any longer. We are the children of our father. I am my mother’s daughter. I have her inside me, calling to me, encouraging me, persuading me against my fear. The time has come for us to reassert ourselves, and our dynasty. And I believe I am not alone in not wishing to live in a world ruled by a man of such cold heart.’
I needed to think carefully.
‘Ay is very powerful. He is also very clever and very ruthless. You will need a powerful and remarkable strategy to outwit him,’ I replied.
‘I have had a great deal of time to study him, and the stratagems of his mind. I have watched him, and yet I think he has not seen me. I am a woman, and therefore I am beneath his notice. I am almost invisible. And-I have had an idea.’
She dared to look proud of herself for a moment.
‘I am sure you realize what is at stake,’ I said, cautiously. ‘Even if you manage to proclaim the King’s accession to power, Ay will almost certainly still hold the reins of its management. He controls many powerful factions and forces.’
‘Ay’s ruthlessness is notorious. But we are not without allies, and he is not without great enemies. And then there is his obsessive love of order. He would rather cut himself in half than risk a renewal of disorder in the world.’
‘I think he would always choose to cut a thousand others in half before himself.’
She smiled, for the first time.
‘Ay is more concerned with others who threaten his supremacy. Horemheb, the general, is waiting for his chance. Everyone is aware of this. And remember, we have one other great advantage over Ay. Perhaps the greatest advantage of all…’
‘And what is that?’
‘Time itself. Ay is old. His bones hurt. His teeth hurt. Time the destroyer has discovered him, and is taking his revenge. But we are young. Time is our ally.’
She sat there in all the simple beauty of her youth, dressed in the gold of the God of the Sun, smiling at the thought.
‘But time is also famously a betrayer. It has us all at its mercy.’
She nodded.
‘You are wise to say so. But our time is now. We must seize this moment, for our sakes, and for the sake of the Two Lands. If we do not, then I foresee an age of darkness ahead of us all.’
‘May I ask one last question?’
She smiled.
‘I heard you like questions. I see it is true.’
‘When will Tutankhamun announce his coronation?’
‘It will happen in the next few days. The ceremonial opening of the new Colonnade Hall has been rearranged. At that time the King will enter the innermost shrine. It is the most propitious moment for change.’
How clever and quick she was. The King would visit the Gods. An announcement after such an event would be perfect timing. It would carry the authority of the divine sanction. I felt a stirring of excitement, of the possibility of change-something I had not felt for a very long time. Perhaps this could work. But I knew my optimism was dangerous, and could betray me into carelessness; for now, we remained in the world of shadows.
‘You said you had something to show me.’
7
It was a small carving of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, together with their older daughters, worshipping the Aten, the sun disc, which had been the great symbol of their revolution. Many rays of light extended down from the disc itself, ending in divine hands which offered ankhs, the sacred symbol of life itself, to the strange little human figures whose arms were raised to receive the divine blessings. Despite the fluid, strange elongations of their limbs, done in the style of the period, it was recognizably a family portrait. The stone was not very old, for it had not been roughened or eroded around its edges by wind and time. It could only be from the city of Akhetaten.
There were several other striking things about it. First, the signs of the name of the Aten had been chiselled out. This was significant, for names are powers, and this desecration was intended as a threat to the soul of Ra himself. Second, the disc of the Sun, the great circle, the sign of life, had also been obliterated. But neither of these things was unexpected, for since the abolishment of the religion, such iconoclasm was common. What mattered more was that the eyes and the noses of all the royal family had been gouged out, so that they w
ould have neither sight nor smell in the Otherworld. And I saw too that Ankhesenamun’s own royal names had been excised. This was a very personal desecration.
The carving had been discovered in a box earlier that day, within the royal quarters, during the hours of the performance of the festival. It bore a label offering the contents as a gift to the King and Queen. No one recalled its arrival, and there was no record of its presentation at the gate to the royal offices. It just seemed to have appeared from nowhere. The presentation box itself was unremarkable-a carved chest, probably made of acacia wood, of Theban design and craftsmanship. I rummaged through the straw in which it had been packed. No note. No message. The desecrated carving was the message. It would have taken some effort to acquire it, for Akhetaten, the City of the Horizon, although not entirely deserted, was slowly returning to the dust of its making, and almost no one went there any more. It had the reputation of a cursed and abandoned place now. Together with Khay, we stood pondering this enigmatic object.
‘And you think this stone is connected to what happened today at the temple, and that between them they constitute a threat against your lives?’ I asked.
‘Each event by itself would be considered alarming. But both in one day…’ she replied.
‘What happened today, and the appearance of this stone, are not necessarily connected,’ I said.
‘How can you be sure?’ said Ankhesenamun quickly.
‘The public event was a consciously political act of dissent. But this is more personal, and private.’
‘That sounds a bit vague,’ said Khay, airily.
‘The first was a crude gesture made by a group who had no other means by which to express their opposition and anger. They had no other way to approach the powers that be than to throw something at the King during a ceremony. For all the drama of its effect, that is hardly the action of powerful people. They are outsiders, without real influence, on the margins of society. This is different: it is more potent, more meaningful, and more sophisticated. It implies knowledge of writing, and of the power of names, and of the effect of iconoclasm. It has needed considerable preparation, as well as inside knowledge of the security of the royal quarters. Therefore we can assume this act has been committed by a member of the elite, and probably by someone within the hierarchies.’
