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Authors: Paul Doherty

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BOOK: An Evil Spirit Out of the West (Ancient Egyptian Mysteries)
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‘What was that?’ Snefru asked.
‘The rage of a god,’ I replied.
Snefru was about to walk away when he came back. ‘Master, I apologise, but on the night you returned, a message came for you.’
‘A message?’ I asked. ‘No one sends messages to Mahu. It cannot be Aunt Isithia.’ I spread my hands. ‘Snefru, where is this message?’
‘It was brought by one of those amulet-sellers. Only a few lines: “Let’s live and love”.’ Snefru rubbed the scar where his nose had been. ‘Yes, that’s it. “Let’s live and love. Suns set and suns rise”.’ He shrugged and spread his hands.
My heart quickened. ‘Anything else?’
‘The amulet-seller said he came from the small-wine booth which stands at the mouth of the Street of Jars. Do you understand what it means, Master?’
I shook my head and walked away. Of course I did! Sobeck had returned. He was in Thebes and wished to see me.
Chapter 11
Pale-faced and anxious-eyed, Akhenaten left the palace the following afternoon. He was surrounded by shaven heads from the Temple of Amun and escorted by guards displaying the golden ram’s head of their god. My master had quietened down. Nefertiti had attended to him and Pentju had also been summoned in the dead of night to give him a soothing draught and check that all was well. Nobody was allowed to accompany him; even Horemheb and Rameses were ordered to stand aside as my master was taken down to the waiting barge: a black-painted, sombre craft with the ram’s head on the prow and an ugly carved jackal face on the stern. Once Akhenaten was gone, our house seemed to lose its soul. A chilling silence drove Ay, Nefertiti and myself out into the garden to sit under the shade of date palm trees. Snefru, sword drawn, circled us like a hunting dog, alert for any eavesdropper, brusque in dismissing servants who came our way. Ay’s confidence had been shaken. He conceded the priests of Amun had acted more quickly and ruthlessly than he had ever imagined.
‘An imperial summons,’ he shook his head, ‘cannot be ignored.’
‘He could have feigned sickness.’
‘Daughter, they would still have taken him.’
‘Why?’
‘Ostensibly,’ Ay sighed, ‘to acquaint himself with the God.’
‘And the truth?’
Ay glanced at me. ‘Mahu, you are so quiet. Can the pupil inform the master?’
‘Yes.’ Nefertiti moved closer, her breath on my face, her perfume tickling my nostrils, hands against mine.
‘For one or two reasons,’ I replied.
‘Yes?’ Ay demanded.
‘To break his will.’
‘Never.’ Nefertiti’s eyes widened.
‘Or to kill him.’
Nefertiti’s head went down; she gave a low moan, a heartwrenching sound. When she glanced up, her eyes were mad with anger. Her hand lunged out, nails ready to rake my cheeks, but her father seized her wrist.
‘You are sure, Mahu?’ he asked.
‘I am certain. The Prince will not be cowed. He asserts himself. He worships a new god.’
‘Whom his father also worships,’ Ay declared.
‘Only as a ploy,’ I replied. ‘A political balance against the host of Amun and only then at the insistence of Queen Tiye. Egypt has many gods,’ I continued. ‘Amun does not object as long as its supremacy, its monopoly of wealth and power is not challenged.’
‘But our Prince is not the heir.’
‘He could be,’ I replied. ‘He might be.’
The garden fell silent except for the call of a dove to its mate. ‘What makes you say that?’ Ay plucked at a blade of grass.
‘Tuthmosis is a blood-cougher.’
‘Not necessarily the mark of death.’
‘In one so young?’ I challenged. ‘Even if he lives and enjoys a million jubilees – may the gods so grant,’ I added mockingly, ‘so might our Prince.’
‘And?’
‘Our journey to the North is now well-known. What if, in the future, during the reign of an ailing Pharaoh, Akhenaten withdraws from Thebes, journeys to his holy site and sets up a rival court, a new temple of religion?’
‘Very good,’ Ay whispered. ‘A master pupil. You do think, Mahu.’
‘He just doesn’t talk, do you, Mahu?’ Nefertiti’s anger had cooled. She was staring curiously at me. ‘Go on,’ she urged.
‘If our Prince dies there’s no threat of schism, no challenge …’
‘But if Tuthmosis dies as well?’ Ay asked.
‘The Magnificent One has daughters,’ I smiled. ‘Shishnak or someone else might marry one of these. It would not be the first time there has been a change of dynasty in Egypt.’ I stared across the garden. ‘And if that happens, we would join our master across the Far Horizon. No one here would be allowed to survive.’
‘Queen Tiye would resist,’ Nefertiti declared.
‘Bereft of her husband and her sons? Don’t you think the priests of Amun know Queen Tiye is the true source of her second son’s waywardness?’
‘So, what can be done?’
‘Nothing,’ I replied. ‘This is the eye of the storm. Our Prince is in the hands of his god.’
‘How could they explain away his death?’ Nefertiti asked.
‘You know full well: an unfortunate accident. Do you remember those crows flying over the Temple of Amun, the Prince’s so-called blasphemous hymn to the Aten in such sacred precincts! The shaven heads of Amun would claim that Akhenaten’s death was a just punishment from their god as well as a vindication of Amun’s supremacy. They do not intend to nip the bud, or cut the branch, but hack at the roots.’
‘We must have time,’ Nefertiti whispered, rubbing her stomach. ‘Mahu, I am pregnant.’
I went to congratulate her. She held up a hand.
‘Pentju has confirmed it.’ Her face creased into a smile. ‘I have asked Meryre to become my chapel priest. Both are sworn to silence. Why?’ she teased, head slightly to one side. ‘Do you think, Mahu, that you are the only child of the Kap who swears loyalty to us?’
‘Excellency,’ I replied formally, trying to overcome my own embarrassment. ‘All men swear allegiance to you.’
‘Very good, Mahu.’ She tweaked the tip of my nose and lifted her shift to reveal a slightly distended stomach. I am perhaps two months gone. Pentju has even whispered that I may have twins. The divine seed has been planted, it must be allowed to grow.’
‘Oh, how?’ Ay plucked at his lower lip, still lost in his thoughts. ‘How can these matters be turned?’
‘You’ve fought in a battle, sir,’ I mocked, recalling his words. ‘There is always a moment, perhaps even only a few heartbeats, when chance or luck …’
‘No such thing,’ Nefertiti snapped.
‘The hand of God,’ Ay whispered, ‘can change things. We have our spies at Karnak.’
Nefertiti glanced away. ‘And what will you do, Mahu?’
I thought of Sobeck, smiled and didn’t reply.
Later in the day I slipped into Thebes, taking a circuitous route to elude any pursuer. So strange to be in the city! The walls of the houses facing the street were dingy, windowless and silent; their doors hung open to reveal shadowy passages or the first steps of a staircase leading up into the darkness. Voices spoke, shouts, a child’s cry. Now and again I had to stand aside for a donkey, laden with burdens, trotting nimbly by under its driver’s stick. Occasionally houses would jut out, their upper storeys meeting to form dark suffocating tunnels. I walked quickly along these into some sunfilled square grateful for the light, noises and smells. The traders, as always, were busy. Sheep, geese, goats and large horned oxen were being herded and paraded for sale. Fishermen and peasants, squatting before their great reed baskets, offered vegetables, meat, dried fish, and pastries for sale. People haggled noisily, bringing their own goods, necklaces, beads, fans, sandals and fish hooks to trade. A farmer was shouting at a buyer, eager to purchase a slumbering ox.
‘No less! No less,’ the fellow shouted, ‘than five measures of honey, eleven measures of oil and …’
I paused as if interested and glanced quickly around. No one was following me.
‘What do you think, sir?’ the buyer bellowed.
‘At least half an
ou
η
ou
in gold,’ I replied.
The haggling started again. I slipped away, concealing my face beneath the folds of my robe as if trying to fend off the stench of sweat, salt, spices, cooked meat and dried fish.
The odour was too much, as was the stinking, flea-infested reek of the alleyways. I went deeper into the city, across the open markets with their stalls and shops. I stopped to admire Hittite jewellery, Phoenician perfume, Syrian cordage, gold, silver and other metals. Feeling hungry I bought a small reed basket of dried dates covered in a syrup of honey and spices, dotted with pistachio and shredded almonds. I took this across to watch a goose being roasted over an open spit. When I had finished eating, I sat under a palm tree so a barber could shave and oil me. All the time I watched for that familiar face, a fleeting glimpse of someone trying to hide. I kept well away from processional routes, the temples and other outbuildings. I acted like a steward of some great mansion out on a day’s shopping. I paused before a jeweller’s stall; he was arguing with a customer over the alloys for electrum.
‘Forty measures silver and sixty gold!’ the customer declared.
I stared down at the precious stones, emeralds, jasper, garnets and rubies.
‘I have others in a chest at the back,’ the jeweller broke off from his quarrel, ‘away from thieving eyes and hands. This man,’ he grinned at the customer, ‘he’s got it wrong, hasn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘An
ou
η
ou
of electrum is twenty measures silver and eighty gold.’ The customer glared at me and shuffled off. I opened my own purse and measured out half an
ou
η
ou
of silver into the small dangling scales. The jeweller’s eyes widened.
‘It’s yours,’ I declared softly, ‘if you just let me stand here. Tell me, is someone following me?’
The jeweller played with the scales, head going from side to side. ‘No, no, there’s no one. Ah, I am wrong. There is someone. He has just gone behind the stall. He’s dark-skinned, a desert man, dressed in a leather war-kilt, a belt across his chest. Ah, he’s turned and is going elsewhere.’
I left the silver, walked away and gazed round. I could not see ‘Leather Kilt’ amongst the crowd, only Nubians with their skins of smoked bronze, long-robed Desert Wanderers, Libyans with their feathered head-dresses, and fair-skinned Shardanah mercenaries. I crossed a needle-thin canal into the poorer quarter of the city which ran along the old quayside, down the narrow, crooked paths reeking of filth between houses of unbaked brick covered with a layer of mud and a roof of palm leaves. Between these, a few ragged acacia and sycamore trees shaded muddy pools for cattle to drink from. The inhabitants spent most of their time out on stools or rush mats, protected with sharp prickles to guard against scorpions and other vermin. They sat, engaged in tasks or eating a dish of onion and flat cakes baked over the ashes of their fires, little pots of oil beside them to soften the hard bread which broke their teeth and chapped their gums. They were garbed in filthy rags, their faces ash-stained. Children, almost naked, played in the mud, running and screaming, the din made all the more hideous by the yip and snarl of narrow-faced, yellow-skinned mongrels. The poverty was disgusting. In people’s faces I saw hollow eyes red and swollen, sunken cheeks and toothless mouths; smoke curled everywhere. I coughed and retched, wary of the rubbish strewn about. The beggars were legion, but my strength, not to mention the dagger I carried, kept them back.
I stopped at a corner and gave a scribe a
deben
of copper. He had set up a stall under a tree to write out temple-petitions for the illiterate. Taking the copper, he directed me to the waterfront where I found the Street of Jars, a thin strip of a lane full of beer-houses and winebooths. I glanced round. No dark-skinned man in a leather kilt followed me. I went into the cleanest-looking beer-house. The reception room was freshly limed, with mats, stools and piles of stained cushions for its customers. The place was half-empty except for a few tradesmen drinking jugs of beer and taking sips of palm brandy, and perfumed liqueurs cooked slowly in a pot. A grey fog of smoke curled from the kitchen and cheap oil lamps. I sat in a corner and ordered some beer. As I did so, ‘Leather Kilt’ sat down opposite me. He was burned black by the sun, shaven-headed, an earring in one lobe, copper-studded armlets and wrist-guards along his arms, a belt of similar colour and texture across his chest, military sandals on his feet. He leaned over, took my jug, drained it and pushed it at the pot boy, indicating we needed two more. I stared at that face, eyes crinkled by the sun, the leathery skin, the ugly scar which marked the left cheek, dead eyes in a dead face, a grim mouth.
BOOK: An Evil Spirit Out of the West (Ancient Egyptian Mysteries)
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