Secrets of a Sun King

by Emma Carroll

  There’s a fresh insect bite on his left cheek. He should have a net covering his bed. I wonder why his servant whose job it is to tend to these things isn’t being more careful. The fevers that come with such a bite are dangerous. So too are the coughs that plague him every winter.

  ‘Are you sick?’ I ask, because this sounds like a fever dream. I hear plenty of them and they usually mean very little.

  ‘No, Lysandra. For once I’m not.’

  I’m more interested now. ‘And how does it end, this dream of yours?’

  ‘I reach a dead end – a wall, a locked door, a ravine – it changes every time.’ He shivers slightly. ‘Behind me, I hear animals growling. Scorpions run across my feet.’

  I mull over what he’s told me, a coldness in my veins; I need to hear more of this dream.

  ‘The person you’re chasing – do you see them?’ I ask.

  ‘I don’t get a good look – oh!’ He stops, startled, as Maya strides into the room.

  My brother, wrapped in a blanket against the chill, looks more bony-limbed than ever.

  ‘Not trying to charm my sister, are you?’ he asks, giving Kyky a playful nudge.

  He’s being ridiculous: Kyky has a wife – Queen Ankhesenamun – chosen for him by the men of his inner circle. She’s very beautiful, with amber eyes and trailing black hair, though she’s almost as old as our mother – which, people say, is why her babies don’t tend to live.

  ‘Go and jump in the river,’ I tell Maya, scowling.

  My brother grins: ‘That’s an idea! Coming, Kyky?’

  Once they’ve gone to get up to whatever mischief takes their fancy, I let out the long, worried breath I’ve been holding in. This dream of Kyky’s troubles me.

  The sun stays hidden for days on end. Everything is cold – the ground we walk on, the water we bathe in, the linen we wear. Kyky’s father was a wayward pharaoh who had favourites among the gods. It brought chaos to our country and people are saying the god Amun is still offended, which is why the sun refuses to shine.

  ‘I’ve never known a winter so miserable or so dark,’ Mother says. She keeps our oil lamps lit all day so she can see well enough to sew.

  I’m struggling to concentrate on my scribing work. All morning I make mistakes on the papyrus. Mother scolds me: ‘Whatever’s the matter, Lysandra? Come, sit closer to the light.’

  But my mind keeps wandering back to Kyky’s dream. A dead end means something – or someone – is blocking his journey through this life and on to the next. It’s a bad omen. So too are the scorpions, which conjure up all things poisonous. I can’t explain to Mother that the darkness isn’t in the room but in my head.

  We’re saved by Maya, who rushes in from outside, bringing the cold air with him.

  ‘I have news!’ he says. ‘The king’s decided to hold a feast day for Amun tomorrow, to win back his favour!’

  ‘Ay has decided it, you mean,’ I mutter. Yet despite my mood, I’m glad. I’ve missed the sun.

  ‘What can we do to help?’ Mother asks, ever practical.

  ‘Your flatbread, Mother. Kyky is requesting it.’ Maya turns to me. ‘You can help Roti with the horses. There’s going to be chariot racing. For once Kyky’s dear godfather is letting him have his way.’

  Chariot racing is one of Kyky’s favourite sports. It’s also dangerous, noisy, smelly and both thrilling and terrifying to watch.

  ‘He’s not taking part, is he?’ I ask. The thought makes me anxious.

  Maya laughs. ‘Don’t look so worried! It’s a feast day, not a funeral.’

  I pray my joyful brother is right.

  PART TWO

  It was for us to prove we were worthy of the trust.

  HOWARD CARTER, ARCHAEOLOGIST

  6

  ‘How long does it take to feed a cat?’ Dad quizzed me when I got home.

  I didn’t have an answer ready this time, either. As I took my coat off and warmed my hands by the stove, I was still in a daze. Though I’d expected the jar to be from Egypt nothing had prepared me for Lysandra’s story, which connected it to the most famous pharaoh in the whole world. I kept thinking about Kyky, the boy who’d wanted a normal life, and who sounded nothing like the treasure-laden king Howard Carter was chasing after.

  And that wasn’t all. Professor Hanawati had been working on the rest of the translation when he died. In his letter, he’d promised ‘more to come’. Just the part I’d read threw up questions enough:

  Was the ‘little rock-face tomb’ Professor Hanawati mentioned the same one Mr Carter was searching for? Was the site where archaeologists and news reporters from across the world were gathering really the right place? It didn’t sound that peaceful to me.

  Which brought me back to the curse.

  Howard Carter was the reason the curse was active again. He had to be. The news of his final search in the Valley of the Kings had broken just before Professor Hanawati’s letter arrived at Grandad’s. In digging for the tomb, Mr Carter had stirred up the past.

  Saying I had a headache, I went early to bed, where I read Lysandra’s account all over again. This time, I noticed the uncanny links between her life and the present day. Kyky’s fever, his cough, the insect bite, all sounded spookily like Grandad’s malaria and infected lungs. Even the normal things that anyone could relate to, like the cold weather and worries about health and friendship, felt oddly apt.

  Yet when I finally turned the light out, it wasn’t curses I was thinking about: it was adults who pushed you into being someone bigger than you wanted to be. And best friends and brothers, neither of which I had, but which would probably make life a lot better.

  *

  The next day Tulip wasn’t in school again. How she got away with it, I didn’t know. So, at the end of the day, I headed to Highgate to fetch my satchel. From St Kilda’s it was a half-hour walk to 24 Makepeace Avenue, which was the address written inside her bag. Desperate as I was to get the jar back, I was also looking forward to seeing Tulip and Oz again.

  The road itself was lined with trees so even before I saw Number 24, I knew it was going to be posh. It was halfway along the street. And by crikey, it was fancy! I stopped at the gate for a moment just to brush any dirt off my coat. The house was made of brick, with doors arched like a church. Even the windows were beautiful, topped with little panes of blue and red glass.

  It was all a bit intimidating, mind you, so I took off my school hat before ringing the bell. Almost immediately, the door flew open and there was Tulip. I was suddenly worried she wouldn’t remember who I was.

  ‘Lil!’ Tulip cried. ‘Thank goodness you tracked us down!’

  I was surprised – and delighted – at how pleased she seemed to see me.

  ‘Come in! You’re just in time for tea!’ Tulip held the door open wide, waving me inside.

  I went in on tiptoes, afraid of dirtying the floor, which was blue and white, as beautiful as dinner plates. Everything in the hallway looked expensive: dark, heavy furniture, gold-framed mirrors. There was even a telephone. Helping me out of my coat and dumping it on a chair, Tulip took her own satchel from me.

  ‘I need to talk to you!’ she hissed urgently.

  I was a bit taken aback. ‘Oh! All right.’

  ‘When we have tea, I’ll give you a sign.’ She sounded excited about it too.

  By now I guessed she’d been snooping inside my satchel, and knew about the jar. Instead of feeling miffed, I was rather relieved. Here was a chance to actually talk to someone about it – as long as she could keep a secret.

  Tulip took me into a parlour, where Mrs Mendoza was sitting beside the fire, writing. Without her hat, she looked younger – and blonder, her hair fashionably bobbed.

  ‘Mama!’ Tulip gushed. ‘Lil’s come to my rescue by bringing my bag back!’

  ‘Why thank you, Lil. If only we’d had your address, we could’ve returned yours,’ Mrs Mendoza said, smiling.

  I was glad she didn’t have it, frankly. After seeing where th
e Mendozas lived, the thought of Tulip coming to our tiny flat made my toes curl with embarrassment.

  As Tulip was asked to call Oz down for tea, I was invited to sit on a plush velvet sofa that squeaked when I moved. I couldn’t help gazing at all the paintings on the walls – slapdash, scruffy ones that Dad would say a child had done but which were probably very modern.

  With a fed-up sigh, Mrs Mendoza closed the notebook she’d been writing in and turned her attention to me. ‘Editors are put on this earth to test us, Lil.’

  I supposed an editor was someone in charge of writers, and replied: ‘My mum works in Woolworths and she says her boss is a cow.’

  ‘Really?’ Mrs Mendoza’s mouth twitched with a smile. ‘Mr Pemberton – my editor – is over here from the States – he works for the Washington Post, as do I.’

  So she was American? It’d explain her accent. And the way she spoke – freely, as if we were very old pals – put me more at ease.

  ‘What are you writing about?’ I asked.

  She laughed, though I hadn’t meant to be funny. ‘The Egyptian dig, of course! Howard Carter inching closer to a big discovery! Is there any other news story worth considering?’

  My heart sank: no, there probably wasn’t. ‘Do you think they’ll find the tomb this time?’

  ‘Apparently Mr Carter has narrowed down his search to a particular spot in the valley,’ she confided. ‘Word has it they’re days from a discovery!’

  I gulped. ‘Really?’ This wasn’t good news at all. If Mr Carter’s digging had triggered off the curse like I’d supposed, then I didn’t have long to get the jar back to Egypt before Grandad’s bad luck – and health – took a further turn for the worse.

  Mrs Mendoza was looking equally unhappy.

  ‘Journalists from all over the world are being sent to Egypt to cover the story. I begged my editor to send me – begged.’ She gritted her teeth. ‘But he chose Mr Richards, as usual, and now he’s had a motorcar accident in Italy.’

  ‘Crumbs!’

  ‘Oh, he’s only broken a leg and banged his head.’ She batted away my concern. ‘The point is Mr Pemberton is now sending another reporter to replace him.’

  ‘Why not you?’

  ‘Reporting on the discovery of a lost pharaoh’s tomb?’ she scoffed. ‘The biggest news story since the end of the war? Why, that’s a job for a man!’

  ‘What TOSH!’ I burst out.

  Mrs Mendoza eyed me with what I hoped was respect. ‘You took the words out of my mouth.’

  Tulip returned then with Oz, who sank into the chair furthest from any of us. The tea arrived next, plates of hot buttered crumpets, lemon cake, chocolate cake, tiny meringues. I took two of everything, at which Tulip looked shocked, then made flapping gestures as I ate. She was, I soon realised, trying to hurry me up. It was a shame to bolt down such a top tea, but this was obviously the sign I’d been told to look out for.

  ‘Let’s fetch your satchel, Lil,’ Tulip said in a bright voice. ‘Oz, you can come too.’

  Oz leapt from his chair. I glanced longingly at my crumpets and all the cake I’d not yet tried. But the glare Tulip was giving me made me put my plate aside.

  *

  We went across the hall to the library. It was amazing that Tulip’s house had a room just for books. There were pictures on the walls in here too, though mostly of the same person, a boy with hair that seemed to be constantly falling into his eyes.

  ‘Is that Alex, your brother?’ I asked. Even though he was blond and pale-skinned, he looked familiar – a bit like Tulip, I supposed.

  She chewed her lip, suddenly serious. ‘It is. He went to France in August 1918 and never came home.’

  I felt awful for mentioning him. ‘Gosh … um … I’m sorry.’

  ‘’S all right.’ Tulip gestured at the silver cups on the shelves, the sort people got at school for sport or writing clever essays. ‘Alex was one of those super-brilliant people who won absolutely everything, though his luck didn’t last forever.’

  Oz had started tapping his fingers against his knee in an agitated fashion. Tulip, seeming keen to change the subject, handed me my satchel, which had been hanging from a chair.

  ‘I didn’t mean to look inside,’ she said, a bit shame-faced. ‘I didn’t even realise it wasn’t mine until last night. But I couldn’t sleep with it in my room, not with that jar inside. It really spooked me.’

  I was glad I wasn’t the only one to have felt this, though being reminded of it made me uneasy too.

  ‘I think it’s cursed,’ I admitted.

  Tulip shuddered. ‘Crikey, how gripping!’

  ‘Believe me, it’s not,’ I said. ‘My grandad’s poorly in hospital and if he’s going to get better, then I’ve got to return the jar to where it belongs.’

  I explained about Grandad and Professor Hanawati being in Egypt together. ‘My grandad never wanted to bring the jar back to England, but the professor did, and realised too late that it was cursed.’

  ‘Death shall come on swift wings to anyone who disturbs the grave of a pharaoh,’ Tulip said in a dramatic voice.

  ‘Is that a proper saying?’ I asked, because I’d not heard it before.

  Tulip nodded. ‘Someone found it, engraved on a stone, very near to where Mr Carter is digging. Mama told me.’

  It sounded unnervingly close to what had happened to the professor and made me shiver.

  Oz, meanwhile, was getting impatient.

  ‘Can we please talk about the jar?’ he begged, shirtsleeves rolled up like he was about to start some sort of task. ‘I’ve inspected it. The stopper is an Anubis head. Its animal form is meant to be that of a jackal, commonly found in the deserts where the dead would’ve been buried.’

  Tulip winked at me. ‘I should’ve warned you, Lil. When my brother gets his teeth into a subject he becomes a walking encyclopaedia.’

  ‘Professor Hanawati reckoned it was a canopic jar,’ I said.

  ‘Looks like one,’ Oz agreed.

  ‘Aren’t those what they put the dead person’s lungs and liver and bits and pieces into?’ Tulip asked, pulling a face.

  ‘It is,’ I said. ‘But this jar had a scroll inside, not innards.’

  ‘Can we see?’ Tulip peered over my shoulder. ‘Open it up, Oz. That jackal-head part looks like it’s the lid.’

  Just as I’d done, Oz tried to open it. Watching him twist it, then pull it, made me jumpy, though, and in the end I had to take it from him, because I was terrified he’d break it. ‘The lid won’t budge. I’ve tried, honest I have.’

  ‘Is the scroll in there still?’ Tulip wanted to know.

  ‘Don’t think so,’ I said. ‘Professor Hanawati was translating it when he died.’

  ‘I wonder what it said.’ Tulip sighed.

  ‘We should read it,’ Oz agreed. ‘It might tell us who the jar belonged to.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘Actually, I have read it – well, the first part of it. He sent the translation to my grandad, with a letter explaining about the curse.’

  ‘And?’ Tulip raised an eyebrow. ‘Was I right to quote that phrase? Is it from the grave of a pharaoh?’

  I looked at Tulip. At Oz. I had to tell them. ‘It’s about the last days of Tutankhamun – by a girl who actually knew him. She calls him Kyky. He was best friends with her brother.’

  Tulip blinked. Oz seemed to hold his breath. You could’ve heard a spider walk across the room. The amazed look on their faces reminded me – as if I needed it – of the hugeness of what I’d found.

  ‘This is a really big discovery, isn’t it?’ I said, aware of a watery sensation in my stomach.

  ‘You could say that!’ Tulip half laughed, half gasped. ‘And you’ve got to send the jar back to Egypt?’

  I nodded. ‘To a hotel called the Winter Palace where Mr Ibrahim will take care of it.’

  ‘You can’t post something this valuable to Egypt!’ Oz looked horrified. ‘You’ve got to take it to the British Museum!’

&nb
sp; ‘It doesn’t belong here,’ Tulip tried to explain. ‘Professor Hanawati brought it to England by mistake – Lil’s just said so.’

  ‘But it should be on display where people can see it,’ he persisted.

  ‘In Egypt, maybe, but not here,’ I argued. Actually, I didn’t think it should be in any museum anywhere – that was why it was cursed.

  ‘The jar’s rightful place is back in Egypt, in Kyky’s tomb,’ I explained very firmly. ‘And that’s where it has to go, otherwise my grandad will probably die.’

  ‘I still don’t think you should post it,’ Oz mumbled.

  This was getting frustrating.

  ‘Look, the Winter Palace is a smart hotel in Luxor,’ Tulip said. ‘But I have to say I’ve never heard of a Mr Ibrahim.’

  I frowned. ‘How d’you know all this?’

  ‘It’s the hotel where all the reporters covering Mr Carter’s story are staying. I’ve seen the address on telegrams Mama sends.’

  ‘If only your mum was going there now.’ I sighed. ‘Then we could ask her to take the jar.’

  ‘But Mr Pemberton’s sending another reporter,’ Oz reminded us.

  Tulip had a point about Mr Ibrahim too. We couldn’t rely on him to still be working at the Winter Palace. It was over twenty years ago that Grandad was there.

  He’d also said that to really understand Egypt, you had to see it for yourself.

  ‘Your mum should go anyway,’ I said, thinking out loud. ‘Just to prove her editor wrong, and show him how good a writer she is.’

  I’d only meant it as a throwaway comment, but Tulip jumped on it straight away. ‘Crikey, you’re right! If she went she’d insist on taking us with her!’

  ‘What if we faked a telegram from her editor?’ I said, warming to the idea. ‘What if we made her think he’d changed his mind and sent her instead?’

  There’d be train tickets to book, hotels to organise. And we were just a bunch of kids. I didn’t know if we could pull it off. Or how quickly.