Snefru joined me outside. We walked and talked and I gained the measure of him. I had chosen correctly. This was a man to be trusted, but one with bounding ambition. We paused under a tamarisk tree and I gazed up at its branches.
‘Wouldn’t you like to change your life, Snefru? To receive a pardon for your crimes, the favour of our rulers? The opportunity to be valued and respected?’
‘I hear your song,’ Snefru replied, ‘but the words are indistinct.’
‘You like the tune?’
Snefru’s face was hidden by the shadows. ‘What we are talking about here,’ he whispered, ‘is a matter of life and death, isn’t it?’
‘Can your companions be trusted?’ I remarked.
‘The other Rhinoceri?’ Snefru laughed softly. ‘Of course they can.’
‘They will do what you say?’
‘That depends on what I offer.’
I drew him deeper into the shadows and, under a starlit sky, the cool breeze whispering, the trees shifting about us, I baited the trap.
Four days later the Veiled One ordered his chariot to be prepared, pulled by his fleetest horses. With myself as the driver, the Kushites armed and ready, my master swept out into the Eastern Red Lands to hunt the ostrich, the lion and the gazelle. We had done this before and the Veiled One always insisted that his chariot must be the most splendid, the panels of the side emblazoned with red, blue and gold, eyecatching designs. The gleaming black harness of the horses was decorated with silver and gold medallions ‘bedecked like Montu’, as my master put it. He was correct, for we were going to war not to hunt.
We reached the reserve and rested during the heat of the day. Evening fell, cool and fresh, but we did not thunder after the fleet-footed ostrich or the darting gazelle. The Veiled One remained in his tent, claiming he was unwell. He despatched some of the Kushites to hunt quail, hare, any fresh meat for our cooking fire. At first we followed the usual routine: four hunters were sent out, the other four remained as guards. The sun began to set, a cold breeze blew and the sky changed as it always did before the darkness came rushing in. We built a campfire and gathered round it. I shared out the supplies we’d brought whilst my master stayed in his tent. The food was palatable but highly salted, dried meat and some bread which had already lost its freshness during the day. The four remaining Kushites were nervous as their companions had not returned.
‘They shouldn’t have been sent,’ one grumbled. ‘We are soldiers, not hunters. It is our master’s duty to provide the meat.’
I stared up at the night sky. We had camped in a small ravine, the rocks rising on either side of us. The Kushites were so nervous they were hardly aware of this break from the normal routine. We usually camped out in the open, our fires easy to see. I listened to their grumbles and poured the wine until they became more drowsy. I told them I’d be back and walked over to the Veiled One’s pavilion. He was sitting moodily, sipping from a cup; his faraway gaze hardly recognised me. I heard the sounds, the crunch on gravel, the clash of weapons. When I left the tent the deed had been done. The Kushites had drunk deeply of the drugged wine. They now lay sprawled in pools of blood forming round their gashed throats. Around them stood Snefru and his companions, armed to the teeth with sword and dagger, bows and quivers slung over their backs. They were all dressed in those reed-battered hats, protection against the sun, leather kilts and marching boots, all supplied by the Veiled One from his small armoury. I walked over and glanced down at one corpse.
‘And the other four?’ I asked.
‘Trapped and killed,’ Snefru replied. ‘It was easy enough. They divided into pairs. We heard them before they ever came into sight.’
I gazed round at the rest. All were Rhinoceri, each and every one handpicked by Snefru, from my master’s house-servants.
‘You realise what has been done,’ I declared, ‘and you know there is no going back. These are Kushite warriors, veterans from the imperial regiments, selected by the Divine One himself to guard his son, but they could not be trusted and had to pay the price. You will take their place.’ I paused. The silence of the night was rent by the coughing roar of the lion, followed by the yip of a hyena and the screech of another animal. ‘You will replace them,’ I continued. ‘You will be my master’s servants. The dust under his feet. There will be no sacred oaths, hands over the altar with fires burning and incense smouldering. You have taken the oath already in the blood of these men. Do not think the Divine One will pardon any of you who decide to betray the rest. Your death will be just as brutal as theirs: impalement on a stake.’
The hieroglyph for ‘to be beautiful’ — nfr/nefer — contains three depictions of the human heart.
Chapter 7
In the freezing cold dark of the desert we buried the stiffening corpses of the Kushites. Snefru informed me that the corpses of the others had been similarly concealed. We dug deep in the hot sand. Afterwards the Veiled One gathered us together.
‘What you have done,’ he declared gently, as if addressing a group of friends, ‘has been ordained and is fitting punishment for traitors. No one lifts his hand against the Son of the Divine One. You are now to return.’ He gazed round, peering at them through the dark as if memorising the faces of this group. ‘Go back to the palace but return individually. Should anyone ask, you know nothing of this. Indeed, for time immemorial, you shall know nothing of this.’
Once they were gone, padding away through the night, the Veiled One took a brand from the fire and burned his pavilion. Then, taking his sword, he hacked at the chariot like a man possessed, denting its finery, shattering the decorations, splintering the javelin holder and damaging the quiver. The splendid Bow of Honour, his favourite weapon for the hunt, was also gouged and marked. Javelins and arrows were thrown onto the sand. Bereft of his cane, his ungainly movements assumed a menace all of their own. I was not invited to join him; he acted like a man demented. When he stopped, he stood, arms drooping, eyes glazed, chest heaving with exertion. He fell to his knees and threw sand over his face. Then, he drew his dagger, lurched to his feet and staggered towards me. He looked as if he was going to trip. I went forward to help but he moved quickly, his arm coming up, the knife slicing my upper arm and nicking my left wrist. I flinched in pain and drew away but he followed on, grasping my tunic and tearing it. I made to resist.
‘Mahu, think! We have been attacked by Libyans, Desert Wanderers.’ He fashioned makeshift bandages to staunch the wound then inflicted similar cuts on himself. All around us was darkness, in this haunted place with the roars of the night prowlers drawing closer and the biting wind turning our sweat cold, coating us in a fine dust which stung our eyes. I ached from head to toe. The wounds from the razor-edged knife smarted as if I had been burned with fiery coals. Once satisfied, the Veiled One took another brand from the fire and stared around. He looked eerie in the dancing flames with his long face and awkward body yet his eyes were steady. When he spoke, his voice was soft as if talking to himself or praying, I don’t know which.
‘Come, Baboon, we are finished here.’
We unhobbled the horses, the Veiled One patting them reassuringly: the beasts could smell the blood, and the dark shapes of the night prowlers increased their alarm. We climbed into the chariot and were gone, out of that ghost-filled gully, hooves pounding, wheels rattling as we fled like birds of ill omen under a starlit sky back to our quarters in the Malkata Palace.
Snefru and the others acted as if nothing untoward had happened. Naturally, of course, the Veiled One’s appearance without his Kushite guards, the state of both ourselves and the chariot raised uproar and alarm. Messengers were despatched to the palace. I assisted the Veiled One to his quarters, helped him strip, wash and don new robes. He did the same for me as if we were two boys desperate to escape the effects of our mischief. Royal physicians arrived. They questioned my master, scrupulously searched for any injury, then they turned on me. We both acted our roles and sang the same hymn: how we had gone out into the Eastern Desert to hunt and been ambushed by Libyan Desert Wanderers. The Veiled One acted all mournful, as did I. He described how his Kushite guard had put up a brave fight. Some were killed, others probably captured whilst, as the Veiled One hinted, the remainder may even have deserted.