‘We are waiting.’ The High Priest’s voice carried like a drumroll across the courtyard. ‘We are waiting for the son of the Magnificent One. All ears listen! All hearts rejoice at the great favour shown this son of Pharaoh!’
He had hardly finished when my master’s voice answered, clear and carrying, thrilling like a trumpet through the air.
My master paused and, completely oblivious to the gasps and exclamations this had caused, continued his paean of praise.
My master fell silent. The priests of Amun were a joy to behold, mouths gaping in sagging faces, hands flailing. Even Shishnak stood as if stricken. A hurried conversation took place between the Pharaoh and the herald. Trumpets blared and Pharaoh, helped by two of his assistants, left the throne. Accompanied by Queen Tiye and the High Priest, Amenhotep the Magnificent marched across the courtyard and up the steps into the sacred place. Only then, in private, could he commune with his gods and vent his rage at the impudence of his son, the Grotesque, who, in the very heart of Amun-Ra’s Temple, had dared to intone a paean of praise to his strange god Aten. The rest of the Assembly had to wait patiently.
I glanced quickly at Ay; his face was impassive but his eyes were bright with amusement. Other officials started talking amongst themselves whilst my master stood leaning on his cane, smiling beatifically up at the sun.
Seth, the red-haired God of Chaos, was often depicted with a beak, horns and forked tail.
Chapter 10
‘Of course our Prince was magnificent.’ Ay bit into a succulent piece of spiced meat. He smiled wonderingly to himself, relishing both the memory and the food. We were sitting out at the Nose of the Gazelle, a craggy promontory overlooking the Nile, Ay, myself, Snefru and the scribe Ineti. A splendid day! Down by the waterside fowlers were busy. They’d spread their nets over a collapsible frame and placed it in clear water between clumps of reeds. The frame was fixed by stakes driven into the mud, then the hunters lurked behind a bush, ropes in their hands, ready to close the net trap on its hinges. The lure was baited with juicy crumbs and seeds. The birds came clustering in, fighting and squabbling over the bait. A fowler appeared, startling the birds; he shouted an order and the net snapped closed, trapping the birds inside. For a while all was confusion. The nets bulged as the birds, packed together, fought vainly to escape. Once they were exhausted the fowlers opened the net, quickly removing the young whilst they slaughtered the rest, necks were wrung, heads chopped off, blood drawn and feathers plucked, then the birds were tossed into pots of salted water.
‘Our Prince,’ I observed, ‘was meant to be trapped but he escaped the net of the fowlers.’
The smell of blood and salt wafted towards us. We sat in a semi-circle around the napkins opened to reveal spiced goose, fresh bread and sliced fruit. Our clay goblets brimmed with the best wine, poured by Ay himself, who had arranged the outing after our return from Karnak. Snefru seemed intent on the fowler, whispering under his breath the different types of bird caught: wild goose, lapwings, sparrows, green-ribbed ducks, grey doves with black collars, quail, hoopoes, red-back shrikes and pigeons.
‘They should be careful.’ Ay pointed to the reedfilled pools along the riverside. ‘Eels, pike and lampreys thrive there and, where they do, the crocodiles gather.’
Snefru refused to meet my eye as he began again to list the different fish which could be caught as if, by simple repetition, he could allay the tension and fear. Despite the meat and wine, that glorious, sunfilled afternoon, Ineti sat cradling his cup, gaze unwavering: if they could, his ugly juglike ears would have flapped because Ay was on the verge of treason. I bit into the fruit and bread and wondered where Ay was leading. Akhenaten had stayed behind with Nefertiti. In fact, he had been constantly with her since our return. No banquets, no feasts, just an ominous silence. Nefertiti had been as angry as a raging cat. She’d clawed my face, twisted my cheek: her beauty made her anger all the more terrifying.
‘My Beloved was baited,’ she snapped. ‘Taken like some tame goose to be paraded before the people. What was he meant to do? Stumble and fall? Either physically or in his words?’
‘Excellency,’ I protested, ‘your Beloved, my master, excelled himself.’
‘He shouldn’t have sung the hymn to the Aten,’ she retorted.
Ay disagreed. When Akhenaten joined them, I was dismissed so they could continue their quarrel in private.
Ay drained his wine and pointed to the hosts of birds flying above the marshes.
‘They remind me of those crows, the ones which flew over the Temple of Amun. A clever trick, that! The shaven heads undoubtedly caught them, starved them, then had them released as soon as we entered the central court. The crows would be noisy, raucous and eager to fly under the sun. Birdseed was scattered round that statue, strewn on the ground, to draw them down. Yet our Prince proved to be master of the occasion.’
Snefru’s scarred face was now all alarmed.
‘And what a speech our young Prince made,’ Ay continued. ‘Such wit, such tact. The shaven heads of Amun must be seething with rage. Ah well.’ He sighed and refilled our goblets. ‘The Magnificent One’s grand design faltered and was replaced with ours.’ He breathed in. ‘It’s good to be here. I love the smell of the river, the sweet and the sour, the ripeness and the dross, the rotting vegetation. Life and death, eh? I hope Shishnak rots in his temple.’
Ineti coughed; his face was ashen, eyes full of fear at what he was hearing.
‘One day,’ Ay murmured, ‘the Aten, the Unseen, Ever-seeing God will come into his own and be worshipped everywhere. The clever tricks of Amun, the charades in his temple, will be over. I’d love to go into the Holy of Holies.’ Ay chattered as if he was talking to himself. ‘They pick up this ridiculous statue on its so-called sacred barque and Pharaoh asks it a question. If the barque moves forwards the answer is Yes. If No, it goes back. I mean,’ he laughed, ‘it’s carried by the shaven heads! They will give Pharaoh the answer he wants. But, of course, he is growing stupid, isn’t he?’