And as for me, I was an opium addict, and until I was no longer in the grip of such craving, I would not allow my family to know me. Still worse, how could I find the courage to tell my wife of my actions? Before I could walk through the gate and back into my home and my old life, I would somehow have to atone for the dark truth of what I had done. And so, as I set foot once more on the stones of the city of my birth, I felt I was more a shadow than a living man: a thin black silhouette, separated from my old self and my old life.
News of Horemheb’s impending occupation, and of Ay’s death, must already have circulated, for there was a strange, new tension in the air of the city. Many smaller ships were being loaded with trunks containing personal possessions, as the rich tried to save their families and worldly goods by shipping them out of the city and down to their country houses. Crowds of merchants clamoured to buy cargoes of grain as if they were the last ever. Fear had already begun to grip the city. We had lived like gods on borrowed time, and now that dream was over.
In the small hours, three nights earlier in Memphis, I had watched the opium packages being transported from the backyard of the embalmers’ and loaded on to another, smaller commercial ship. I had watched the Official of the Dock sign the papyrus of authorization for the cargo, and give it back to a man dressed in military clothing. I had not recognized him. He and several other accomplices had then boarded the boat to accompany it to Thebes.
It had arrived at noon. I stood in the shadows and kept watch. Nothing happened until the sun set. Then, in the dark of the night, more men appeared, and carried ten wooden crates down the gangplank to a waiting cart. I followed it into the city. The moon was full, and its bone-light lit the streets. The single cart was accompanied by armed guards, running before and after in silence. They did not travel far. They turned past the Southern Temple, and then followed its eastern wall before turning into the spreading labyrinth of the eastern suburbs and their narrow side streets. I knew these streets and passageways well, for I had lived and worked there as a Medjay officer all my life. Some were thoroughfares with shops and markets, others were dedicated to different trades where the workshops opened directly on to the street; others still were low passages only wide enough for one man. So I ran through these, following the map of the place in my head, glimpsing the progress of the cart down dark alleys and side ways.
Finally, it stopped at the high wall of a merchant’s warehouse. The great wooden doors were immediately opened, and it drove in. I waited, breathless, listening to the sounds of the night city, which I seemed to hear intently, in enormous detail-the barking of the dogs across the districts, the cry of night birds, and the uncanny silence of the streets. I approached warily. Nothing distinguished the house from any other, except that its walls were high, it was separate from the buildings around it, and there was only one entrance. Disappointed, I found a discreet doorway in the shadows, and settled down to wait. The cart did not reappear, but all through the night, men in groups appeared in silence, knocked quietly, and were admitted-perhaps twenty altogether. None, however, left.
As I waited in the darkness, Ankhesenamun’s face began to haunt me; I remembered the warmth of her greeting, all that time ago, before we began our journey north. I remembered the fear in her eyes, and her noble call upon my loyalty to her. She was alone, in that lonely palace. Perhaps she had intelligence about Horemheb’s imminent arrival in the city; perhaps she was preparing to escape. But perhaps she was trapped there, unaware. Without Nakht to support her, or Simut to protect her, maybe I was the only man in the world who could help save her from the coming storm.
So when the night sky began to turn blue, and the first workers appeared in the dark streets, coughing and hawking and spitting phlegm, and still no one had appeared from the merchant’s house, I made my choice. I gambled that Obsidian would not appear in daylight. I had very little time.
40
The palace corridors were crowded with men and priests, followed by servants and assistants carrying piles of papyrus scrolls, going about their duties with an air of desperate purposefulness, as if even now meetings and high-level decisions could somehow make a difference to the coming catastrophe. Probably they were all jockeying for position, stabbing each others’ backs, and working out how they could plausibly ingratiate themselves with the general, when he finally occupied the city.
I walked through the crowds without being questioned; and no one stopped me until I came to the doors to the royal apartments themselves. The guards took one look at me, and barred the way, calling to their colleagues to send more officers to arrest me for trespass. I tried to use Nakht’s name, and I invoked Simut’s authority, but they only glanced at me quickly, evasively. They forced me down, their knees in the small of my back, until I was pressed flat to the ground, and could not even speak.
‘What is happening here?’ I suddenly heard a superior, commanding voice. ‘Who is this man?’
I recognized the voice. It was Khay, Chief Scribe to the palace.
The guards twisted me until my face was revealed.
‘Rahotep? Is it possible…?’
Khay was suddenly, imperiously, in command.
‘This man has essential business with the Queen!’ he exclaimed to the guards. He set about their heads with his staff of office.
He took me through into an antechamber of the great Audience Hall.
‘We learned the news of your death. How is it you are alive, and standing here before me?’
‘I have to speak to the Queen. I will speak only to the Queen.’
He considered me, and finally nodded.
‘Come.’
And so I was announced and admitted into the Audience Hall, and into Ankhesenamun’s presence once more. I walked towards her, between the columns, and once more past the walls inlaid with coloured tiles depicting the great victories of Egypt over her captive enemies.
The Queen was seated on her throne, upon the raised dais, wearing the Blue Crown with its worked decoration of discs, and at the front she wore the gold cobra head. She held the crook and flail, because she was now indeed ruler of Egypt. She was surrounded by her advisers and hangers-on, wearing their insignia of office, whispering confidentially to each other, or addressing her with desperate advice-all trying to save their own skins. But when she noticed me, she suddenly stood up. All stared at me, as at a spirit returned from the Otherworld. I prostrated myself.
‘Life, prosperity, health.’
The words of the formula had never before had such intense meaning for me.
The Queen dismissed her advisers with a gesture of her bejewelled hand, and they backed away, bowing and muttering along the length of the columned hall. Once they had all left, and the doors were closed, we were alone.
‘Stand up, Rahotep. Approach the throne.’
I did so. To my astonishment, she suddenly threw her arms around me. I carefully held the slim body of the Queen, our living God, in my arms. Rage and despair had kept me going all these days. And now her extraordinary gesture moved me so deeply, I almost cracked and wept. When she looked up, her face was wet, her eyes shining. A lock of her own black hair, which had been hidden under the crown, hung down around her ear.
‘I knew you had arrived safely in Hattusa. But when no news came to me of success, or of your return, and there was only silence from the messengers, I believed the worst had come to pass…’