Tutankhamun: The Book of Shadows rr-2

by Nick Drake

  I bowed my head again at these brave words. And I let myself wonder how the world would be if, perhaps, after all, the light could conquer the shadows.

  He poured two goblets of wine, passed me one, and offered a stool to sit with him.

  ‘I understand who has reason to wish me dead. Horemheb is ambitious for power. He sees me merely as an impediment to his own dynasty. And Ay will oppose the new order, because it denies him his authority. But Ankhesenamun and I will deal with him accordingly.’

  ‘The Queen is a great asset,’ I said.

  ‘She has a mind for strategy, and I for appearance. It is a fortunate combination. And we trust each other. We have depended on each other since we were children, at first from necessity, but that quickly grew into mutual admiration.’

  He paused.

  ‘Tell me about your family, Rahotep.’

  ‘I have three glorious girls, and a young son, thanks to the grace of my wife.’

  He nodded.

  ‘You are indeed fortunate. Ankhesenamun and I have not yet achieved that, and it is imperative we raise children to succeed us. Twice we have failed, for the infants were stillborn. Girls, they told me. Their deaths had a grave effect upon us. It made my wife feel…blighted.’

  ‘But you are both young. There is time.’

  ‘You are right-there is time. Time is on our side.’

  Neither of us spoke for a moment. The faint light from the brazier played across the tent walls. Suddenly I felt tired.

  ‘I will sleep outside your tent tonight,’ I said.

  He shook his head.

  ‘That’s unnecessary. I will no longer be afraid of the dark. And tomorrow we will hunt again, and perhaps fortune will bring us what we seek: a lion.’

  I stood, and bowed my head. I was about to step back, and out of the tent, when he unexpectedly spoke again.

  ‘Rahotep. When we return to Thebes, I wish you to become my personal bodyguard.’

  I was astonished into silence.

  ‘I am honoured, lord. But surely Simut has that position.’

  ‘I wish to appoint someone who will concentrate on my security to the exclusion of all else. I can trust you, Rahotep; I am sure of it. You are a man of honour and dignity. My wife and I need you.’

  I must have looked disconcerted, for he continued:

  ‘It will be a generously rewarded position. I am sure your family would benefit. And you would not have to consider your career prospects in the city Medjay again.’

  ‘You do me too great an honour. May we discuss this again when we return to Thebes?’

  ‘Yes. But do not refuse me.’

  ‘Life, prosperity and health, lord.’

  He nodded, and I bowed and stepped backwards. But before I left the tent he called to me:

  ‘I enjoy talking to you, Rahotep. As much as I have enjoyed talking to any man.’

  Outside, I looked up at the moon, and thought about the oddness of fate; of the disparate things that had brought me to this place, this wilderness, and this moment. And I realized that, despite everything, I was smiling. Not just at the strangeness of my audiences with the most powerful man in the world, who was still something of a child; but at the unpredictability of fortune, or luck, that now offered me what it had seemed I would never achieve. Preferment. And I indulged myself in a rare, delicious sensation: the thought of triumph over that clod of authority, Nebamun. I would enjoy watching his rage when I told him that I no longer needed anything from him.

  31

  A tracker returned that evening with news. He had found the tracks of a lion. But they lay far off, deeper into the Red Land. We gathered in Simut’s tent.

  ‘He is a nomad,’ said the tracker.

  ‘What does that mean?’ asked Simut.

  ‘He is not attached to any pride. Young males live alone in the desert, before finding a pride to which they can belong again, in order to father young. Whereas the females always hunt together, and always remain in their home prides. So we have to follow him into his own domain.’

  We agreed we would dismantle the camp, and move everything to where the tracks had been found. From the new camp, it would be possible to take our time, track the lion, and choose our moment to hunt. We had sufficient supplies of food and water to last at least another week. And if the lion moved even deeper into the desert, then we could travel further, even as far as the remote oases, if necessary, for supplies of food and water.

  I watched as our temporary habitation was taken down again. All the golden furniture, the kitchen equipment and the caged animals were loaded on to carts. The goats were tethered together again. The cook’s hooks, knives and great cauldrons were loaded on to the mules. And finally the King’s tent was dismantled, the central pole and its golden ball taken down, and the long lengths of cloth folded and packed away. Suddenly it looked as if we had never been here at all, so transient was the impression we had made upon the vastness of the desert. All that was left was the chaos of our footprints and the brazier’s circle of black ash that was already drifting apart in the light northern breeze. I pressed the cinders down under my foot, and remembered the black circle on the box lid back in the Palace of Shadows. Of all the signs, it was the one that had haunted me most. I still did not know its meaning.

  The sun was already well past its zenith when we set off deeper into the Red Land. The air shimmered across the desolate, barren landscape; we travelled slowly through a wide empty bed of shale and grit, surrounded by low bluffs, that might once have been a great river in the ancient past-for it is known that the bones of strange sea creatures were occasionally revealed by the wind and the changing sands. But now, as if by some catastrophe of time and the Gods, everything in this world had been transmuted to this grey and red rock and dust under the furnace of the sun. The great slow seas of sand, which I had heard of in tales from travellers, had to be much further to the west.

  I rode beside Simut.

  ‘Perhaps fortune is at last gracing us,’ he said quietly-for every sound travelled crisply in the silent air.

  ‘All we have to do now is track the lion.’

  ‘And then we must do everything to help the King to his triumph,’ he replied.

  ‘He is determined to make the kill himself, but it is one thing to kill an ostrich among a herd of terrified animals, and another altogether to face and kill a desert lion,’ I said.

  ‘I agree. We will have to surround him with the best hunters in our team. Perhaps if they can bring the lion down, then he would be content to strike the final blow. It would still be his kill.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  We rode on without speaking for a while.

  ‘He seems to have recovered well from the death of his monkey.’

  ‘If anything, it has strengthened his resolve.’

  ‘I never liked that pathetic creature. I would have wrung its neck long ago…’

  We laughed quietly.

  ‘I pity its suffering, but it turned out to have a use, in the end.’

  ‘As a food-taster, and through its greed, like a creature in a moral fable, it came to an unfortunate end,’ he replied, with a rare, wry smile.

  After slowly crossing the forsaken ocean of gravel and grey dust for hours, we came at last into a different, strange, wild landscape where the artistry of the wind had carved pillars of pale rock into fantastical shapes, lit now in yellows and oranges by the glory of the sunset. The brazier was quickly set, the tents resurrected, and soon the smells of cooking drifted richly in the pure air.

  The King appeared at the entrance to his tent.

  ‘Come, Rahotep, let us walk together before it is dark.’

  And so we strolled among the curious forms of the rocks, enjoying the cooling air.

  ‘This is another world,’ he said. ‘How many others, of perhaps still greater strangeness, lie even further away into the Red Land?’

  ‘Perhaps the world is much larger than we can know, lord. Perhaps the Red Land is not
all there is of the land of the living. There are stories of lands of snow, and lands where all is green, always,’ I replied.

  ‘I would like to be the King who discovers and charts strange lands and new peoples. I dream of how the glory of our empire might one day go forth into unknown worlds, and into the dim future. Who knows but that what we make in this world might survive time itself! Why should it not? We are a great people of gold and power. The best of us is beautiful and true. I am glad we came, Rahotep. I was right to command it. Away from the palace, away from those walls and shadows, I feel alive again. I have not felt alive for so long. It is good. And fortune will smile upon me now. I can feel the goodness of the future, just ahead of me, calling to me to make it come to pass…’

  ‘That is a great calling, lord.’

  ‘It is. I feel it, in my heart. It is my destiny as King. The Gods are waiting for me to fulfil it.’

  As we had talked, the brilliant stars, in all their glory and mystery, had appeared in the great ocean of the night. We both stood beneath them, looking up.

  32

  We set out in the chariots, properly armed and provisioned, as the sun was setting on the next day. The trackers had reconnoitred the terrain and found more signs. The lion’s territory seemed to centre on the low, shady bluffs at a little distance from the camp. No doubt they provided a haven for whatever life could survive in this harsh place. We carried with us a newly slaughtered goat’s carcass, to tempt him. We waited, our chariots arranged in a wide fan, watching from a careful distance as a tracker rode across the grey landscape with the dead animal, deposited it, and then retreated.

  The tracker took up a position next to me.

  ‘He will be very hungry, for the prey is limited out here, and we have offered him a fine feast. I hope he will take the bait before it is dark.’

  ‘And if he does not?’

  ‘Then we must try again tomorrow. It would be unwise to approach him in the darkness.’

  And so we waited silently as the sun continued its descent. Ahead of us the shadows of the bluffs lengthened imperceptibly, until, like a slowly rising tide, they reached the carcass, as if to consume it. The tracker shook his head.

  ‘We are too late,’ he whispered. ‘We can return tomorrow.’

  But just then, he tensed like a cat.

  ‘Look. There he is…’

  I peered into the darkening landscape, but saw nothing until at last I noticed the slightest movement of shadow against shadow. Everyone had noticed the tracker’s reaction, and a sudden jostling of movement passed down the line of men and horses. The tracker held up his hand for absolute silence. We waited intently. Then the shape moved forward, stealthily, slinking, as it approached the carcass. It raised its head to scan the terrain, as if wondering where this ready-made feast could have come from, and then, satisfied, settled down to feast.

  ‘What should we do?’ I whispered to the tracker.

  He considered carefully.

  ‘It is too dark to hunt him now, for we would easily lose track of him. This terrain is difficult. But now we know he will accept our offerings, we can return tomorrow, and tempt him out earlier with more fresh meat. A young adult such as this one has a large appetite; he will not have fed well for a long time. And tomorrow we will be well prepared, and in better positions from which to surround him.’

  Simut nodded in agreement. But suddenly, without warning and without support, the King’s chariot jolted forward, and began to gain speed across the rough ground. Everyone was taken entirely by surprise. I saw the lion raise its head, disturbed by the distant noise. Simut and I spurred our own horses, and set off in pursuit of the King. I looked again and saw the lion was now dragging the carcass away towards the cliffs, where we would never find him. I was gaining on the King’s chariot, and shouted at him to stop. He turned around, but gestured as if he could not, or would not, hear me. His face was alive with excitement. I shook my head wildly, but he merely grinned like a schoolboy, and turned away. The chariot wheels clattered alarmingly, and the axles knocked and complained as the wooden structure struggled with the demands of the rough terrain. I glanced up and for the briefest of moments I saw the lion standing and staring. But the King had some distance to cover, and the beast did not seem greatly alarmed.

  The King raced onwards, and I saw him struggling to control the chariot, and at the same time to fit an arrow into his bow. Now the lion turned, and his loping strides quickly become full-stretched flight at incredible speed towards the safety of the dark bluffs. I lashed my horse onwards, and gained on the King. I thought surely he would realize there was no chance of hunting the lion in these conditions, but suddenly his chariot jumped up in the air as if it had hit a rock, and then slammed down again. As it did so the left wheel shattered and sheared, the spokes and wheel rim splintered and flew off, and the carriage collapsed on to its left side. It was dragged wildly across the rough ground by the panicked horses. I saw the King gripping on to the side of the chariot in terrror; but in the next moment his body flew up like a rag doll, and then hit the ground at speed, rolling over and over, until it came to rest in the darkness.

  I reined in my horse, and my chariot skidded to a halt. I ran to his body. He was not moving. I dropped to my knees beside him. Tutankhamun, Living Image of Amun, was making small sounds that tried and failed to become words. He did not seem to recognize me. There was a puddle of blood, black and shiny, spreading on the dust of the desert.

  His left leg above the knee was sticking out at a sickening angle. I carefully peeled the linen of his robe, sticky with blood, away from the skin. Shards of shattered bone protruded through the torn flesh and skin. There was grit and dirt in the horrible, deep wound. He gave a terrible moan of acute pain. I poured water from my flask, and the blood washed away, black and thick. I feared he would die there, in the desert, under the moon and the stars, his head in my hands like a chalice of nightmares.

  Simut arrived, and took one look at the disastrous wound.

  ‘I will fetch Pentu. Don’t move him,’ he shouted, as he rode away.

  The tracker and I stayed with the King. He had begun to shiver violently with shock. I tore the panther skin from the floor of the chariot, and covered him with it as gently as possible.

  He was trying to speak. I lowered my head to catch his words.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he kept repeating.

  ‘The wound is superficial,’ I said, trying to reassure him. ‘The physician is coming. You will be fine.’

  He gazed at me from the strange distance of his agony, and I knew he knew I was lying.

  Pentu arrived and examined the King. He checked first his head, but aside from the swelling of bruises and long scratches down one side of his face, there were no signs of bleeding at the nose or ears, and so he concluded the skull was not fractured. At least that was something. He then examined the wound and the broken bone by the light of our torches. He glanced up at Simut and me, and shook his head. Not good. We stood apart so that the King could not hear us.

  ‘We are lucky that the artery in the leg has not been severed. But he is losing a great deal of blood. We must reset this fracture immediately,’ he said.

  ‘Out here?’ I asked.

  He nodded.

  ‘It is imperative he is not moved again until this is done. I will need your help. This is a difficult bone to set, for the fracture is severe, and the muscles of the leg and thigh are powerful. And there will be some overriding of the shattered bone-ends. But we cannot move him until it is done.’

  He assessed the angle of the broken bones. The King’s limbs seemed like the parts of a mangled doll. Pentu placed a rolled-up linen cloth between his chattering teeth. Then as I held his torso and upper thigh firmly in position, and Simut held the other side of his body, Pentu swiftly pushed down on the femur, and with a practised motion jammed the shattered bone-ends together. The King screamed like an animal. The gristly noise of the setting reminded me of the kitchen, when I break apart
the haunch of a gazelle, twisting its leg bones from the thigh socket. This was butcher’s work. Then the King vomited, and passed from consciousness.

  Pentu set to work by the flickering torchlight, stitching the ugly wound with a curved copper needle he produced from a case made of bird bone. Then he smeared honey and oil on it, and bound it tightly in linen bandages. Finally he made the leg as secure as possible within a splint padded with linen and secured by knots, for the journey back to the camp.

  The King was carried into his quarters. His skin was clammy and pale. We gathered around, in a hushed, urgent conference.

  ‘The fracture is of the worst kind, both because the bone has shattered, rather than snapped across, and because the skin has been torn open, making the flesh vulnerable to infection. There has been loss of blood. But at least everything has been reset. Let us pray to Ra the fever will pass, and the wound heals well,’ said Pentu gravely.

  A low sense of dread had fallen upon us all.

  ‘But he is now asleep, which is good. His spirit will be pleading with the Gods of the Otherworld for more time, and more life. Let us pray they are persuaded.’

  ‘What should we do now?’ I asked.

  ‘The most sensible decision medically would be to transport him swiftly to Memphis,’ said Pentu. ‘At least there I can care for him properly.’

  Simut interrupted: ‘But in Memphis he would be surrounded by his enemies. Horemheb is likely still in residence. I say we must return him to Thebes in secrecy, as swiftly as possible. And this accident must be kept secret until a public version of events has been agreed with Ay. If the King-life, prosperity and health be upon him-is fated to die, then it must be in Thebes, among his own people, and near to his tomb. And we must control how his death is understood. Of course, if he lives, then he can best be cared for at home.’