So the cold-blooded assassin walked to the edge of the pharaoh’s bed. He planted his feet wide. Now balanced and stable, he grasped the club with two hands and brought it up high over his head. Though he wasn’t tall, he was broad shouldered.
Could it really be this easy to murder a pharaoh? He kept waiting for a guard to spring from hiding or for Tut to rise up and catch him in the act, to forbid his own murder.
The soldier felt the smooth ebony in his hands, and the heft of the stone seemed right for what he was about to do—not so light that it would bounce off the king’s head, and not so heavy that it would throw him off balance as he swung.
He was startled as the pharaoh spoke softly in his sleep. “Mother,” Tut said.
The soldier put down the club. It wouldn’t be right to kill the pharaoh like this. Instead, he placed his strong hands firmly on either side of Tut’s windpipe and applied great pressure.
Tut’s eyes opened wide. He tried to fight back but was too weak. And then he was dead.
The soldier picked up his club and left the room as quickly and quietly as he’d entered. Later that night, the soldier himself was hacked to death.
Chapter 99
Palm Beach, Florida
Present Day
THE PAINTINGS INSIDE THE TOMB were what told the true story and helped to solve the murder mystery.
On the walls of Tut’s tomb are images of Aye peering down at anyone inside the burial chamber. He is shown performing the Opening of the Mouth ceremony and wearing a king’s crown. This was the job of the new pharaoh. So not only did Aye perform the task, but he was pharaoh soon enough after Tut’s death to commission an artisan to paint his own likeness on the wall of Tut’s tomb.
Ironically, these two men, mortal enemies in life, were now linked for eternity inside this dank chamber. Tut would never be able to escape his tormentor.
My research showed similar paintings on the walls of Aye’s tomb. As with Tut’s burial chamber, there was an ocher and yellow painting of twelve guardian baboons, representing the twelve hours of the night. There was a painting of Aye hunting in the marshes. Upon Tut’s death, Aye was in charge of the wall paintings for the young pharaoh’s tomb and, of course, his own.
More important, Aye didn’t have Ankhesenpaaten depicted on the walls of Tut’s tomb. Ankhesenpaaten was Tut’s favorite and only wife. But Aye wanted her all to himself so he could claim the royal throne. His plan was clearly to make Ankhesenpaaten his queen, almost as if Tut had never existed.
So who was responsible for the murder? Who conspired to kill Tut? And why?
They all killed him. Remember, the queen actually ruled as pharaoh immediately after Tut’s murder. She clearly wanted power—witness her attempt to marry the Hittite prince. That was treason of the most desperate sort. And for what reason? The power to rule Egypt.
All three of them—Ankhesenpaaten, Aye, and Horemheb—succeeded Tut to the throne. Aye double-crossed Ankhesenpaaten by killing the Hittite prince. He was getting on in years, after all, and knew he wouldn’t have another shot at the throne. First he murdered the Hittite prince, and then he killed Ankhesenpaaten. The queen had agreed to Tut’s murder. No doubt worried that he might die anyway, she believed she could marry her Hittite prince, produce an heir, and continue to sit on the throne.
Ankhesenpaaten had no idea she would be double-crossed by Aye and then murdered.
Nor did Aye know he would be killed by his ally, General Horemheb, who would then succeed him as pharaoh.
Tut was killed by a conspiracy of the three people closest to him in life—Ankhesenpaaten, Aye, and Horemheb. Hundreds of thousands have visited the Tut exhibits, many millions believe they know the story, but few understand the sad tragedy of the Boy King.
Case closed.
Today, Tut’s mummy resides in a plain wooden tray that Carter had built for him. Investigators over the years have discovered that he had a broken right ankle that seems to have been in a cast; he had suffered a fracture of the right leg that was severe and possibly infected; he even suffered from an impacted wisdom tooth.
But Tut was murdered.
Tut, as he can be seen today, still inside the tomb where he has lain for thousands of years.
Chapter 100
London
March 2, 1939
HOWARD CARTER DIED ALONE, attended by only a niece who stood to inherit the treasures he had found while toiling more than thirty seasons in the Valley of the Kings.
Four days passed between his death and the burial, long enough for the Times to eulogize him as “the great Egyptologist… who gained fame for his part in one of the most successful and exciting episodes in the annals of archaeology.”
Now, finally, as sleet threatened South London, Carter was being laid to rest.
Eulogies in the Times were a privilege. Usually only the rich, famous, eccentric, and overachieving were granted the honor.
Carter had once been all four. But the romantic flavor of this eulogy, written by his friend Percy Newberry, belied the fact that Carter’s celebrity had long before diminished—and that Percy was his only close friend. In fact, the funeral was embarrassing for its air of sloppiness and apathy: just a handful of mourners gathered around the grave; the birth date etched on Carter’s tombstone was off by one year; and, saddest of all, he was buried in a simple hole in the ground.
For a man who had spent a lifetime exploring the elaborate burial tombs of the pharaohs, it seemed a most unfitting way to bid the world adieu.
But there was one saving grace.
Years after breaking off their affair, the one love of Carter’s life appeared at the graveside. Lady Evelyn was a small woman, expensively dressed, wearing a broad black hat. Her father had been furious with Carter about their clandestine romance. And when Lord Carnarvon died quite suddenly, just months after the discovery of Tut, she had done “the right thing.” Lady Evelyn, daughter of the Fifth Earl of Carnarvon, had turned her back on Carter and found a more socially—and financially—appropriate groom. They were married just months after the public opening of Tut’s tomb.
Now Lady Evelyn stood on the spring grass, gazing at a simple casket and a deep hole in the earth, just as she had once gazed into another burial site while at Carter’s side. Maybe that was why she had come. For no matter how far apart Carter and Lady Evelyn drifted, neither could escape the fact that on one glorious November morning, seventeen years earlier, they had been the first people in three thousand years to gaze inside the tomb of the Boy King known as Tutankhamen.
Together they had made history and been toasted around the world.
“I see wonderful things,” Carter had said breathlessly after his first peek.
Now Carter breathed no more.
The vicar of Putney closed his prayer book, and Carter was lowered into the ground. Lady Evelyn threw a fistful of earth into the chasm, then walked slowly back to the gravel drive, where her car and driver were waiting.
It was Hodgkin’s lymphoma that killed Carter at the age of sixty-four. Tut was barely eighteen when he died, though the cause of his death had mystified Carter right up to the end. It was a mystery that Lady Evelyn had pondered over the years too, a great missing piece of the puzzle of King Tut.
Now in a grave far less noble, Carter slept, never to be disturbed.
Epilogue
Valley of the Kings
1,300–500 BC
THE MYSTERY OF KING TUT, the teenage Boy King, deepened slowly, one sandstorm and deluge at a time.
First, the desert winds whipped tons of sand across the Valley of the Kings, sending the tomb robbers living in caves high above the valley floor to scurry deep inside their homes. The door to Tut’s burial chamber was sealed and hadn’t been tampered with for hundreds of years.
And as the sand covered the lowest step leading down to the doorway, then another, and another, the doorway had an even better seal.
Now it was entirely buried by rock and grit, hidden from the worl
d.
Rain didn’t come to this valley often, but when it did, the water fell with such intensity that massive chunks of earth slid from the walls to the valley floor.
The water turned the sand and limestone into a form of cement, so that anything lying beneath it was encased in a hard rocky crust. In this way, the final steps leading down into Tut’s tomb were covered over.
Soon it was as if they had never existed.
Each successive sandstorm and torrential downpour heaped on another layer, until the tomb steps were more than six feet below the surface of the earth. The burial site’s location was not just obliterated but forgotten.
Deep below the ground, Tut, the Boy King, rested. The walls were sturdy and did not crumble or crack from the new weight above.
Nor did his treasures suffer from rain or humidity—if anything, they were more protected now than they had been before.
Tut lay alone year after year, century after century, as if waiting for the day when some explorer would scrape off those layers of dirt and limestone.
And, perhaps, unearth the secrets of his life and untimely death.
Books by James Patterson
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The Murder of King Tut (with Martin Dugard)
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About the Authors
JAMES PATTERSON is one of the bestselling writers of all time, with more than 170 million books sold worldwide. He is the author of the top-selling detective series of the past twenty years—the Alex Cross novels, including Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider, both of which were made into hit movies. Mr. Patterson also writes the bestselling Women’s Murder Club novels, set in San Francisco, and the new series of #1 New York Times bestsellers featuring Detective Michael Bennett of the NYPD. He won an Edgar Award, the mystery world’s highest honor, for his first novel. He lives in Florida.
James Patterson’s lifelong passion for books and reading led him to launch a new website, ReadKiddoRead.com, which helps parents, grandparents, teachers, and librarians find the very best children’s books for their kids.
MARTIN DUGARD is the New York Times bestselling author of such nonfiction titles as Chasing Lance,The Last Voyage of Columbus,Farther Than Any Man,Knockdown, and Into Africa. He has written for Esquire, Outside, Sports Illustrated, and GQ. Dugard lives in Orange County, California, with his wife and three sons.
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