‘How?’ I asked.
‘How do you think babies are conceived?’ he spat back.
I raised my hand.
‘Mahu, Mahu,’ he grasped my wrist and gently lowered my arm. ‘Khiya was cunning as a monkey. She suspected Nefertiti’s gifts of wine and food contained potions which would either stop her conceiving or destroy anything formed in the egg. I told her only to eat and drink what I gave her. The Divine One often came here. Oh, I thrilled at what Khiya told me. How he was growing tired of Nefertiti who saw herself as his equal both before man and god. How bitterly disappointed he was that he had no son.’ Pentju shrugged and sat down on a wooden garden seat; he picked up a small pot of flowers and kneaded the black soil with a finger.
‘When Khiya became pregnant again, Akhenaten swore me to secrecy. The same for everyone who worked here. The cooks, the maids, they are all Mitanni owing allegiance to Khiya and to no one else. She was instructed not to leave the gardens: the gates were guarded and, of course, no one ever suspected.’
‘Except for Ay?’
‘Except for Ay.’ Pentju sighed. ‘Somehow he heard the news but dare not tell his daughter nor raise the matter with Pharaoh himself. Ten days ago the child was born, strong and vigorous. Poor Khiya became weak. She caught a fever and died. Pharaoh had issued strict orders. No one was to come here. No one was to leave without his written permission.’
‘Except for me?’
Pentju closed one eye and squinted up at me, nursing his sore jaw. ‘She liked you, Mahu, you know that. Khiya really liked you. You were one of the few people who showed her respect. She thought you were funny. How did she describe you?’ He closed his eyes. ‘Oh, that’s it! Not a man who had lost his soul but one who was searching for it. In the last few hours before she died she was sweat-soaked, feverish, hot as a rock burning in the sun. She whispered your name and asked to be remembered to you.’
I felt a chill run through my body. Pentju had lost his cynical look. He rose and grasped both my wrists.
‘I allowed you in, Mahu, because of her.’ His voice fell to a whisper. ‘Because I have a message: “Tell Mahu,” Khiya said, “that I speak before I die and I will speak from beyond the grave”.’
I recognised the Mitanni turn of phrase for someone taking a great oath.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘“Tell Mahu to protect my son. Tell Mahu to be his guiding spirit, to protect him as he once protected the Veiled One. Tell him that perhaps my son is the One who is to come, the Messiah, the Holy One of God”.’
Pentju held me so tight, his gaze was so fierce, his voice so strong that I knew he spoke the truth.
‘I cannot.’
‘No, you must, Mahu! She swore a sacred oath. She called your name. Whether you like it or not, you are bound to that child. Stay here.’
Pentju left and returned a short while later followed by a young woman carrying a baby in swaddling clothes, suckling at her generous breast. The girl looked up at me and smiled. She chattered in a tongue I could not understand. Pentju replied and the woman placed the child gently in my arms.
It was the first time I, Mahu, had ever held a baby. I gazed down, pushing back the linen hood which protected the head. I noticed the skull was strangely elongated at the back but the face was most comely: little eyes stared unblinkingly at me, chubby cheeks, a little mouth opening and closing, eager for the nipple and the life-giving milk. I expected him to cry at being taken away from his suckling but he just stared at me. I felt his warmth seeping through the linen blankets. I pushed my finger into the little hand and smiled at the grip. Pentju said something to the wetnurse who withdrew. For a while I just stared down at this tiny creature who had caused such confusion and chaos to the power of Egypt.
‘Tutankhaten,’ I whispered, ‘the Crown Prince Tutankhaten.’
Those small black eyes gazed at me owlishly. They say that babies don’t smile, that their expressions are simply caused by hunger and thirst. However, that little one smiled at me, a fleeting expression, as if he was savouring a joke. I handed him back to Pentju.
‘He is well and vigorous?’
‘Well and vigorous,’ Pentju agreed, ‘with no disfigurement or deformity.’
I thought he was going to add something else but he called the wetnurse in. He did not talk again about the oath but escorted me back to the gate. I realised there was an unspoken, unwritten agreement that, whatever happened, Khiya’s dying oath would bind me for ever.
For the next few weeks all was chaos and confusion. Ay retreated to his own quarters. Everyone else became busy in that frenetic, mindless way as courtiers do when they wish to ignore something and not face the consequences of what might happen. The Royal Circle didn’t meet. Queen Tiye visited both her son and Nefertiti, but it was obvious that the rift between the Royal Couple was bitter and could not be healed. Akhenaten himself seemed wholly taken up with his new son whilst Nefertiti now became a recluse in her apartments in the Northern Palace. No one could approach her. Even when I applied for leave to do so, Chamberlain Tutu instructed me never to ask again. Akhenaten also withdrew. Life in the city became slower, more disorganised. Work on the Royal Tomb and other sepulchres abruptly halted. Everything was in a state of flux and, as happens in the affairs of men, the blundering of blind fate intervened.
The texts in this tomb contain the most extraordinary errors and are often unreadable.
(N. de G. Davies’ commentary on the Hymn to the Aten as found in Mahu’s tomb.)
Chapter 19
The pestilence swept into the City of Aten at the height of the hot season during year thirteen of Akhenaten’s reign. A virulent plague, it brought the sweating sickness followed by instant death. Coming so swiftly on the rift between Pharaoh and his Great Queen, it looked as if the gods had finally turned their face against Egypt. The plague was brought to the quayside of the city and swept through the streets on both sides of the Nile. The empty house of Makhre and Nekmet, as Djarka often told me, had been a constant topic of conversation especially when people tried to buy it: they could see no reason why it should be left to lie uninhabited. By the time the plague faded during the spring of the fourteenth year of Akhenaten’s reign there were many empty houses in the City of Aten.
The plague, an invisible mist of death and destruction, wreaked havoc among all classes. The symptoms became the constant topic of conversation — a terrible sweating, lumps in the groin and armpits, vomiting and excruciating stomach pains. I know, I became a victim. I only survived thanks to Djarka, who brought in a Sheshnu wise man who fed me a mixture of dried moss mixed with stale milk. Djarka escaped unscathed, but for weeks I was in the Underworld, a frightening reality where the devourers gathered around me, men in strange armour, faces covered with ugly masks, grotesque beasts such as winged griffins, crocodiles with the heads of hyenas. All the dead clustered about me as if to celebrate some infernal party — Aunt Isithia, Ineti, Weni, Nekmet, Snefru, Makhre and all the rest, gloating to see me. I swam in a pit of fire with dark shapes hovering above me and raucous cries echoing through the red, misty air. I survived but thousands didn’t.
For most of year fourteen of Akhenaten’s reign I remained weak and helpless. I couldn’t stand for long; even a short walk exhausted me. Only after the appearance of the Dog Star which marked the New Year did my old strength return. Djarka allowed me to look at myself in a polished mirror.
‘You are as lean as a greyhound.’
I had changed. My hair had grown and was tinged with grey. There were marks around my mouth, and my cheeks were slightly sunken. I studied my eyes and pushed the mirror away.