I held her gaze. ‘Nothing, Excellency. I was just intrigued.’
‘Good!’ She stroked my cheek. ‘Remain intrigued, Mahu, and you will remain alive.’
‘ Enk Shweer Neb-ef -
I am cursed by his Lord.’
Chapter 14
I was appointed Chief of Police over the entire city of Thebes and the surrounding area shortly after I recovered from a fever in the thirty-seventh year of the Magnificent One’s reign. I received my Gold Collar and Seals of Office at an official ceremony before the Window of Appearances from Akhenaten and Nefertiti, God’s Father Hotep looking on smugly. I was to work in the new buildings of the Palace of the Aten, my chambers standing next to Ay’s; the latter had also received further honours, including the title of the Commander of the Chariots of Min. My master never told me why I had been chosen or why there had been a delay over the publication of such a great office. Ay did that at the subsequent banquet as we dined on a range of delicacies cooked in the Canaan fashion over herb-strewn charcoal, the dishes being served by Syrian girls dressed in the guise of Hathor, the Lady of Mirth.
‘You are, Mahu,’ Ay spoke over his cup, ‘a cunning soul and you accept that what our Prince wishes has force of law, and that convinced me.’
So he had delayed my appointment! I was too drunk to respond, whilst the Gold Collar weighed heavily round my neck. The other children in the Kap were busy toasting me. Horemheb and Rameses, resplendent in their Guard Officers’ uniforms, were both looking lean and fit after a season out in the Red Lands hunting down and killing outlaws who preyed on caravans. Huy was absent, being despatched as an envoy across Sinai. As professional soldiers, Horemheb and Rameses were most interested in this. They grumbled about the creeping inaction of Egypt’s border troops to counter the unrest amongst her client states across Sinai, especially in the face of the growing power of the Hittites. Maya also attended as Hotep’s retainer. He looked plump and comely in his perfumed robes.
‘Ringed and bangled,’ Rameses hissed, ‘as any whore.’ Maya kept his distance as well he might: he had yet to decide which path he would tread. Pentju and Meryre lorded it over all, two wise fools full of wine and their own importance. Pentju was gabbling about the light of his life, the Lady Tenbra whom he had impressed with his wealth and status, so hoped to make a good marriage.
Of course, there were distractions enough at the banquet. All of us had to applaud Akhenaten as he directed his Hittite Orchestra of the Sun, now trained in the lute, the oboe, the harp and cymbal. The members of this singular group had their own quarters and no longer looked so strange in their heavy wigs and female robes, faces gaudily painted. They had soon reconciled themselves to their fate as consecrated to the god whilst seeing their eccentric ruler as God’s incarnate representative. We cheered as if they had been inspired by Hathor herself. They played passably well. Nefertiti, sprawled against the cushions, her babies lying swaddled next to her, kept up a playful commentary that whatever happened, the Hittites must not sing.
The banquet ended, as all such occasions did, in drunken toasts and bouts of false bonhomie. Nevertheless, we all knew it was a time of waiting, though waiting for what, had not yet been revealed. For the Magnificent One to journey to the Far Horizon? For Akhenaten to reveal his face publicly to the people? To confront those forces so implacably opposed to him in both court and temple? It was a busy time for me as I took my new duties seriously. Unrest and uncertainty seethed beneath the surface of the elegant colourful life of the court.
My alliance with Sobeck was formalised and strengthened. He now proclaimed himself as Lord of the Am-Duat, King of the Underworld, that hidden Thebes, a city of thieves, pickpockets, charlatans, vicious gangs, assassins, pimps and prostitutes. I would not interfere with him but he would help me whilst taking care not to cross the boundaries I had drawn.
I inherited two deputies in East and West Thebes, but soon replaced these with merchants, friends of Sobeck, bitter opponents of Rahimere the Mayor of Thebes and High Priest Shishnak. They reported to me constantly, a flood of petty information from servants, peddlers, workers in the Necropolis, merchants and spies, as well as the Medjay, the desert scouts and river guards. All the chatter and gossip of Thebes came into my office. Sobeck supplemented this and I soon won a reputation for ruthless efficiency. Visitors coming in from the Eastern and Western Deserts were greeted by a line of stakes bearing the impaled corpses of outlaws, bandits, river pirates and tomb-robbers. House-breakers, burglars and market thieves received swift justice in the courts, and brandings, floggings and executions were carried out in public, usually at the scene of the crime. Stolen goods were quickly recovered. Sobeck received a reward for these as well as the bounty posted on the heads of such malefactors. He celebrated my appointment by telling me to drink wine on a certain evening on the highest roof of the palace overlooking the city. I did so and sipped the richest wine from my cellar as I watched the fire flare and Aunt Isithia’s house go up in flames. I toasted and cheered the fierce red glow in the sky. Sobeck also sent information about the temple priests, that gaggle of hypocrites of whitewashed sepulchres. The shaven heads, led by Shishnak, were buying weapons and armour, increasing their guards and hiring mercenaries from as far afield as the Islands in the Great Green. Of course, they kept these out of Thebes and quartered them on their extensive estates along the Nile. I warned Ay. He just shrugged — ‘Mahu, the race hasn’t yet begun’ — and returned to the reports from his spies detailing the great wealth of Amun.
In the palace Akhenaten proved to be a doting father and loving husband. A certain distance, even coolness, had grown up between us but that was due to Ay’s influence as well as the distraction of his wives and family. At first Ay, as he’d confessed, had been opposed to me securing the post of Chief of Police. He’d wanted the office to go to another member of the Akhmin gang.
‘It wasn’t personal, dear boy,’ Ay whispered, ‘but in life, blood always comes first.’
In other areas Ay didn’t fail. Members of the far-flung Akhmin gang were appointed to posts whenever they fell vacant; if the Magnificent One tried to object, Queen Tiye always smoothed things over.
Nonetheless, I was not completely ignored. Akhenaten would sometimes go walking with me. He talked volubly or, indeed, lectured me about the Aten, his closeness to the Godhead and the truth of his destiny. I sensed he was holding back, due to the influence of Ay and Nefertiti, though sometimes the truth came out. He’d talk of dreams and visions of being visited by the Aten, or how he had flown on eagle’s wings beyond the Far Horizon.
‘I soared above the Eternal Green, Mahu.’ Akhenaten would stand, hands clasped, eyes half-closed. ‘I have looked on the face of the everlasting vision.’
At other times he’d not be so forthcoming, curt in his speech, stumbling in his walk, slow of thought, even indecisive in all his movements. I wondered how much of his mystical experiences, as well as his bouts of depression, were the result of Nefertiti’s potions and powders. In the two years following my appointment as Chief of Police, Nefertiti became pregnant twice again — a matter on which Akhenaten preened himself, hoping desperately for a son but hiding his disappointment at the birth of a third and fourth daughter.
Nefertiti became caught up in her role as wife and mother though she would also be constantly closeted with Akhenaten and her father as they dreamed and talked about change and revolution in Egypt. Oh, she was, and remained, always lovely, ever alluring, fair of form, gracious and good. Nevertheless, she did change, imperceptibly at first, this change expressing itself in a certain haughtiness in look, gesture and speech. She could be openly dismissive of Great Queen Tiye while the Magnificent One’s growing obsession with his eldest daughter became a constant subject for her mockery and salacious jokes. On state occasions the tables were now turned. There was no longer any laughter or giggling whispers about the Grotesque but bold mockery of Sitamun, who revelled in her status as the Great Wife of her own father. Tiye seemed to have given up any attempt to oppose her, being more content to hide in the shadows and wield what secret power she could. Sometimes, when Sitamun’s name was mentioned at a banquet or a meeting of the Royal Circle, Tiye would catch my eye, invoking memories of the night I’d peered into the House of Love whilst listening to her hissed instructions of what was to happen if Sitamun ever conceived a child. I would stare coldly back, quietly hoping that Tiye would, with her potions and powers, do her part to ensure her eldest daughter’s womb remained barren.