by Nick Drake
‘I want to see it.’ She grinned her clever grin.
‘You never will,’ said Sekhmet suddenly. ‘You’re just a girl.’
Nakht was just thinking about how to respond to that when trumpets blasted out a deafening fanfare; at this signal the ranks of priests knelt down as one in the perfect dust, and the soldiers stood tightly to attention, their spearheads and arrowheads glittering in the unforgiving sun. Then, from out of the shadows of the vast enclosure wall, two small figures appeared, seated upon thrones carried by officials, and surrounded by men of the offices and their assistants. The moment they moved from the shadows to the sun, their robes and high crowns caught the powerful light, and they shone dazzlingly bright. An absolute hush descended upon the city. Even the birds were silenced. The most important moment of the festival’s ritual had commenced.
But nothing happened for a few moments, as if they were too early for a party, and no one had quite thought what to do to keep them entertained. The royal sunshade holders produced sunshades and protected the royal figures within circles of shade. Then a roar up ahead announced the God in his gold shrine, borne on the shoulders of his bearers, as the procession slowly and laboriously turned the corner, and appeared in a flash of light. The royal figures waited, seated like dolls, costumed, stiff and small.
Preceded by high-ranking priests chanting prayers and spells, surrounded by acrobats and musicians, and followed by a white sacrificial bull, the God approached. Finally the King and Queen stood up: Tutankhamun, the Living Image of Amun, and next to him Ankhesenamun.
‘She looks frightened.’
I looked down at Sekhmet, then back at the Queen. My daughter was right. Under the paraphernalia of power, the crown and the robes, the Queen looked nervous.
From the corner of my eye I saw, from out of the dense crowd standing under their sunshades against the intense light of the sun, several figures raised up by other figures as if on the joined hands of acrobats, and then a series of swift movements, arms casting something–small, dark balls that arced high in the air, over the heads of the crowd, on an inexorable trajectory towards the standing figures of the King and Queen. Time seemed to stretch and slow, as it does in the last moments before an accident.
A series of bright splashes of red exploded suddenly across the immaculate dust, and over the King and Queen’s robes. The King staggered backwards and slumped into the throne. The silence of profound shock suspended everything for a long moment. And then the world exploded into a thousand fragments of noise, action and screaming.
I feared Tutankhamun was dead; but he slowly raised his hands in horror or disgust, reluctant to touch the red stuff that ran down his royal robes into a puddle in the dust. Blood? Yes, but not the King’s, for there was too much of it too quickly. The God’s shrine now wavered, as the carrying priests, uncertain how to respond, waited for instructions, which did not come. Ankhesenamun was looking about in confusion; then as if waking from a slow dream, the orders of the priests and the army suddenly broke ranks.
I became aware of the girls screaming and crying, of Thuyu huddling into me, of Tanefert holding the other girls to herself, and of Nakht’s quick glance communicating his shock and astonishment at this sacrilegious act. On the roof terrace, men and women were turning to each other, their hands raised to their mouths, or appealing to the heavens for comfort in this moment of disaster. A tumult rose beneath us as the crowd began to panic, turning in confusion, pushing against the ranks of Medjay guards, trying to spill out on to the Avenue of Sphinxes, where they stampeded away from the scene of the crime. The Medjay guards responded by piling into the crowd, hitting anyone they could reach with their batons, dragging innocent bystanders by the hair, tackling men and women to the ground–where some were trampled by others–and herding as many people as they could capture together.
I looked back down to the place the balls had been thrown from, and noticed a young woman’s face, tense with trepidation; I was sure she had been one of the people who had thrown the balls; I watched as she looked around, assessing whether she had been seen, before turning purposefully away in the middle of a group of young men who seemed to gather about her as if in protection. Something occurred to her, and she looked up and saw me watching her. She held my gaze for a moment and then hid herself under a sunshade, hoping to disappear into the pandemonium of the streets. But I saw a group of Medjay guards rounding up everyone they could catch, like fishermen, and she was trapped, along with many others.
The King and the Queen were already being carted with indecent haste back into the safety of the temple walls, followed by the hidden God in his gold shrine and the crowds of dignitaries who ducked and scurried, alert to their own anxieties. Then they all vanished through the temple gates, leaving behind an unprecedented pandemonium at the heart of the city. A few bladders of blood–weapons suddenly as powerful as the most sophisticated bow and the finest, truest arrow–had changed everything.
I looked at the solid ground far below me, crowded with people, swirling in eddies of panic, and then for an instant what seemed solid changed to an abyss of dark shadows, and within it I saw the serpent of chaos and destruction, that lies coiled in secret beneath our feet, open its golden eyes.
4
I left the family with instructions to wait in Nakht’s house until it was safe for them to return home under the care of his household guards. Then I took Thoth with me, and stepped carefully out of the doorway into the street. Medjay officers swept up the last of the crowds, taking prisoner and binding any they suspected of wrongdoing. Shouts and cries came distantly through the thick, smoky air. The Avenue seemed like a vast papyrus scroll on which the true history of what had just happened was now recorded on the trampled sand, scribbled with the scuffed signs of footprints as people had fled, abandoning thousands of sandals. Litter drifted pointlessly. Gusts of hot air went around in angry circles, and then died out in a flutter of dust. Little groups gathered around the dead and injured, weeping and crying out to the Gods. The detritus of all the festival flowers, smeared and crushed, made an inadequate propitiatory offering to the god of this havoc.
I examined the patches of spattered blood, now sticky and congealed in the sun to black puddles. Thoth sniffed delicately at the blood, his eyes flickering up at me. Flies fought furiously over these new riches. I carefully picked up one of the bladders, and turned it in my hand. There was nothing sophisticated about it, or about this act. But it was radical in its originality, and the crude effectiveness of its abomination; for the perpetrators had humiliated the King as well as if they had just hung him upside down and smeared him in dog shit.
I walked beneath the carved stone image of our standard, the Wolf, Opener of the Ways, and entered the Medjay headquarters. I was instantly assailed by chaos. Men of all ranks hurried about, yelling orders and counter-orders, and generally demonstrating their status and appearance of purpose. Through the crowd, I saw Nebamun, Head of the Thebes Medjay. He stared at me, obviously annoyed to find me here, and gestured bluntly in the direction of his office. I sighed, and nodded.
He kicked the door shut in its shoddy frame, and Thoth and I sat patiently on our side of his not very neat low table, covered with papyrus rolls, half-finished snacks and dirty oil lamps. His big face, always shadowed with bristles, looked darker than ever. He glanced disdainfully at Thoth, who gazed back at him undaunted, as he pushed the various documents about with his stubby fists–he had the wrong hands for a bureaucrat. He was a man of the street, not a papyrus man.
He and I had avoided speaking directly to each other, but I had tried to show I bore him no resentment at his promotion over me. His was not the job I desired, despite my father’s disappointment, and Tanefert’s wish. She would prefer me to inhabit the safety of an office; but she knows I hate being trapped in a stuffy room mired in the tedium and nonsense of internal politics. He was welcome to it all. But now he had power over me, and we both knew it. In spite of myself, something rankled in my gut
s.
‘How’s the family?’ he asked, without much interest.
‘They are well. Yours?’
He gestured vaguely like a bored priest waving away a troublesome fly.
‘What a mess,’ he said, shaking his head. I decided to keep quiet about what I had seen.
‘Who do you think is behind it?’ I asked innocently.
‘I don’t know, but when we find them, and we will, I am personally going to rip their skin from their bodies in long, slow strips. And then I will stake them out in the desert under the midday sun as lunch for the bull ants and the scorpions. And I will watch.’
I knew he did not have enough resources available to investigate any of this properly. In these last years, the Medjay budget has been cut again and again, in favour of the army, and too many ex-Medjay were now unemployed or else working–for better remuneration than they had ever received within the force–in private security operations for rich clients and their families, at their homes or their treasure-filled tombs. It created an uncomfortable circumstance in which to run the city force. So he would do what he usually did when faced with a real problem: he would arrest some likely suspects, invent a case against them, and execute them for show. Such is the process of justice in our time.
He lolled backwards, and I saw how his belly had expanded since he had been appointed to his new role. Fat, with its implication of wealth and ease, seemed to be part of his new self.
‘It’s been a while since you had one of your big projects, eh? I expect you’re sniffing around for a place in the investigation…’
The way he eyed me made me want to walk out.
‘Not me. I’m enjoying the quiet life,’ I replied. He looked offended.
‘So why the hell are you here? Sightseeing?’
‘I examined a dead body this morning. A boy, a young man, under interesting circumstances—’
But he didn’t let me finish.
‘Nobody gives a fuck about a dead kid. Write a report, file it…then do me a favour and go away. There’s nothing for you here today. Next week I might be able to find you a few bits and pieces to mop up, when the others have finished. It’s time to let the younger officers have their chance.’
I forced myself to smile, but it felt more like the teeth-baring of an angry dog. He saw this. He grinned, stood up, walked around the table and with mock officiousness opened the door. I walked out. It slammed shut behind me.
Outside, hundreds of unfortunate men and women of all ages were crowded into the courtyard, crying out their innocence and their petitions, or yelling abuse at each other. Many thrust out offerings of anything they possessed at this moment–jewellery, rings, clothing, even an occasional message scratched on to a shard of stone–to try to secure freedom from the guards. No one took any notice. They would be held arbitrarily, for as long as required. Medjay officers methodically and mercilessly bound the wrists and ankles of any not yet trussed up.
I passed through the low dark entrance to the prison block, and immediately smelt the hot, stable stench of fear. In small cells, shackled prisoners were being tortured, their feet and hands twisted, or struck with hard blows, while their confessors quietly repeated the same questions, over and over, as a father might address a lying child. The prisoners’ pitiful laments and pleas went unacknowledged. No one could endure such pain, and fear of pain; and so of course long before the cutting knives were produced, and their sharp blades shown to the victims, they would say anything they were told to say.
I saw her in the third holding cell. She was crouched on the fetid ground in a dark corner.
I entered the cage. The prisoners made way for me, fearfully, as if I would kick them. She kept her face hidden under her black hair. I stood before her.
‘Look at me.’
There was something about her face, when she raised it–perhaps its pride, perhaps its anger, perhaps its striking youth–that touched me. I wanted to know her story. I had a feeling that the kind of injustice that deforms a whole life had been visited upon her.
‘What is your name?’
She maintained her silence.
‘Your family will be missing you.’
She sagged a little. I knelt down closer to her.
‘Why did you do it?’
Still nothing.
‘You know there are men here who can make you say anything they want?’
She was shivering now. I knew I should report her. But I realized in that moment I could not do it. I could not deliver this girl alive into the hands of the torturers. I could not have lived with myself.
She turned her face away, waiting for her fate to be decided. I stared at her. What should I do?
I pulled her up roughly, and took her out of the cell. I was well known enough not to need to show any of my identity papers to the guards. I simply nodded at them, as if to say–‘she’s mine.’ Then I pushed her before me along the stinking passage.
We turned a corner, into my office, and fearing the worst, she began to struggle violently.
‘Be quiet, and be still,’ I whispered urgently. I quickly cut the ropes that tied her hands and feet. A look of grateful astonishment dawned on her face. She was about to speak but I gestured to her to remain absolutely silent. I cleaned her face as best I could, with a rag dipped into the water pot, and as I did so I questioned her.
‘Speak quietly. Who ordered this action?’
‘No one ordered it. We acted ourselves. Someone has to protest against the injustice and corruption of this state.’
I shook my head at her naivety.
‘Do you think throwing blood at the King will make a difference?’
She looked at me with contempt.
‘Of course it will make a difference. Who has ever had the courage to take a stand before? No one will forget this gesture. It is only the beginning.’
‘And for this you were prepared to die?’
She nodded, convinced of her ideals. I shook my head.
‘Believe me, the real target you need is not this boy in gold robes. There are others, far more powerful, who deserve your attentions.’
‘I know what is done in the name of justice in this land, by men with power and treasure. And you? You are a Medjay officer. You are part of the problem.’
‘Thank you. Why are you doing this?’
‘Why should I tell you anything?’
‘Because if you don’t tell me, I will not do what I intend to do, and let you go free.’
She stared at me in amazement.
‘My father…’
‘Go on.’
‘My father was a scribe in the offices of the former King. In Akhetaten. When I was young, he moved us all to the new city. He said the new regime offered him the chance of preferment, and stability. And so it seemed. We lived well. We had the nice things he had dreamed of giving us. We had some land. But when everything collapsed, we had to move back to Thebes with nothing. He was stripped of his work, and his land, and everything he owned. And it broke him. And then one night, there was a knock on the door. And when he opened it, soldiers were waiting for him. They put him in fetters. They wouldn’t even let us kiss him goodbye. And they took him away. And we never saw him again.’
She couldn’t continue for a moment, but I saw it was rage not grief that gripped her.
‘My mother still sets a plate of food for him every night. She says the day she stops doing that is the day she knows he is dead. The men of this King did this to us. And you wonder why I hate?’
It was not a new story. Many men of the old regime had suffered: enforced labour and dispossession and, in some cases, disappearance. Husbands, fathers and sons were arrested and removed in fetters, in silence, and never seen again. I have also heard stories of body parts washing up further to the north along the Great River. Of eyeless, rotten corpses fished up in the nets, missing fingernails, and fingers, and teeth, and tongues.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’
&nb
sp; At least now she looked reasonably presentable. I led her out into the courtyard. The great risk was that we would be noticed, but taking advantage of the general chaos, we hurried through the crowds, under the entrance with its carved wolf, and then out into the busy street.
‘I understand how you feel. Injustice is a terrible thing. But think carefully. Your life is worth more than a gesture. Life is short enough. Your mother has lost enough already. Go home to her now, and stay there,’ I whispered. I insisted she give me her name and address, in case I needed them for the future. And then, as if she were a wild animal, I let her go. She disappeared into the city without once looking back.
5
It was late when I returned to the house. Thoth and I passed through the gate. But instead of loping to his bed in the yard he stood poised, his tail up, listening intently. The house seemed unusually quiet. Perhaps Tanefert and the children had not yet returned from Nakht’s house. But the oil lamp was lit within the front room, where we never sit.
I moved across to the kitchen door, soundlessly pushed it open, and stepped across the threshold. Another lamp was lit in the wall niche, but there was no sign of the children. I moved towards the door into the front room. Tanefert was sitting on a stool by the wall paintings that still, after all these years, we have not found the funds to complete. She had not yet seen me. She looked tense. I moved further and saw another shadow lying across the floor. Then the shadow’s arm moved, and I slipped quickly into the room and grasped the man’s arm behind his back.
A goblet clattered to the floor. Wine spread in a small puddle. I was staring into the condescending face of an elite gentleman, of late middle age, expensively dressed, surprised but still composed. Tanefert stood up, as if to attention. It seemed my nerves had betrayed me.
