‘I do not want you to dance for me, Your Highness, but to answer my questions.’
She paused, hands coyly together.
‘Mahu, you are so dull.’
‘I’m alive. I could have been dead. I want to know how a gardener owned a precious ruby. How a gardener attacked a man wearing a striped cloak. You knew what I was wearing this morning.’
‘Oh, Mahu, others know you wear it!’
‘How many others give gardeners beautiful rubies?’
‘Oh no.’ Ankhesenamun flounced down on a high-backed chair. ‘I know you wear a striped robe. So according to you I seduced the gardener, gave him a ruby from my casket and told him to kill you. However, he made a mistake and murdered Rahmose instead. He then tried to flee, but the door he tried was wedged fast shut and the guards killed him. He was a gardener in the royal household, so someone here must have hired him.’
‘Your Highness is very knowledgeable.’
‘I am knowledgeable because you are right. I did arrange it. The gardener,’ she pouted, ‘well, he was a friend and has done similar tasks before.’ She played with a sphinx armlet of gold inlaid with lapis lazuli, cornelian and turquoise, and then, as if bored by that, picked from a nearby table an ebonite fan edged with gold and shook it vigorously to cool her face.
‘I am not a child, Mahu. I have been married to my father. I have given birth to one child who died. I am surrounded by enemies and so, like you, I bite before I am bitten. Why not ask me outright and I’ll reply?’
She rose and went through the curtains behind me, I heard her pull across the bolts on the door. She walked back, no longer seductive and languorous, but businesslike, pacing up and down, twisting the ring on her finger.
‘I heard the news from the Delta about the impostor who has appeared.’
‘You are certain he is an impostor?’ I asked.
‘I am sure. Well,’ she shrugged, ‘I think so. But leave that for a while.’ She turned to face me squarely. ‘I had Rahmose killed because I believe those sanctimonious hypocrites Meryre, Tuthmosis and the rest of the devout are much more dangerous than you, or even Grandfather, think. If they are not killed, they’ll certainly kill you.’
‘You have proof of this?’
‘The gardener,’ she raised her hand, ‘I told him exactly what to do, which door would be left open, but he was becoming too arrogant. I placed the wedge beneath the door. He paid the price for his insolence.’
‘But you said you had used him before?’
‘Sobeck must have told you how there are other precious rubies for sale in the markets in Eastern Thebes.’
‘I am sure there are.’
Ankhesenamun sat down on a chair. ‘Mahu, I am thirsty. Pour us each a goblet of Carian wine and come and sit close to me.’ She gestured to a footstool. ‘We are allies, not enemies. Father trusted you, that’s why he made you guardian of his son.’
I filled the goblets, came back and sat on the footstool, staring up. You are Nefertiti’s daughter, I thought, if not in looks then certainly in soul. As if she could read my mind, Ankhesenamun tweaked the end of my nose, a favourite gesture of her mother.
‘I thought you’d come, Mahu. You’ve been back in Thebes only a few months. I could not search you out but had to wait for you to approach me. So, I shall tell you the truth.’ She grinned. ‘Or at least part of the truth. I am with you and the Prince, not with my grandfather. He nurses ambitions, you know, Mahu.’ She chuckled at my look of puzzlement. ‘As long as Tutankhamun lives,’ she whispered, ‘Ay, Horemheb and all the rest of the hyaenas are kept in check. But if my half-brother dies, to whom does the double crown go?’
‘You could rule as Queen,’ I replied. ‘It would not be the first time.’
‘But who would support me, Mahu? Grandfather? Horemheb?’
‘Hatchesphut ruled alone.’
‘History!’ Ankhesenamun snapped. ‘And she married her half-brother so there was always a male heir. Between me and the darkness, Mahu, there’s nothing.’
‘So, Ay dreams of becoming Pharaoh?’ I laughed. ‘It’s not inconceivable.’
‘But so do others, Mahu! Horemheb claims to be a royal bastard, of the blood of Amenhotep the Magnificent. And why stop there? What about General Rameses? Or even Huy, Maya …?’
‘No,’ I replied, shaking my head.
‘Or even Meryre? That’s why they are all united against this usurper. Enough contestants for the crown imperial reside at court without pretenders in the north.’
‘Meryre?’ I scoffed.
‘He sees himself as High Priest of the Aten, the spiritual successor of my father, but he is corrupt and sanctimonious.’ She leaned closer, her lips only a few inches from my cheek. ‘Did you know our High Priest invites me to his supper banquets? In his cups he admitted he would love to see me and Amedeta couple together on a bed. A vile man, Mahu, of bounding ambition, without the talent to match. This trouble in the Delta, I suspect Meryre has a hand in it, whatever he says! In his cups he is silly and clucks like a chicken. But sober, Meryre is as dangerous and as threatening as the rest. What if, Mahu,’ she drew back, ‘Meryre and the Atenists use this usurper to sweep the board clean of all of you, Horemheb, Rameses and the other Children of the Kap? How long do you think little Tutankhamun will survive, or myself?’ She smiled thinly. ‘Though Meryre has ambitions in that quarter: marriage to me when he proclaims himself Pharaoh of Egypt.’
‘No.’ I shook my head in disbelief. ‘I have spies in Eastern and Western Thebes; Sobeck and Djarka sift the gossip like wheat from chaff.’
‘Do you think Meryre is going to tell anyone?’ Ankhesenamun laughed. ‘Do you know the whereabouts of all my father’s treasures?’ She rose and walked across the room, keeping her back to me as she took off the shawl and donned a sleeveless shift. Then, rewrapping the shawl, she came back and sipped from her wine cup.
‘How do you know all this, Highness?’
‘Because Meryre thinks I’m his ally.’
‘And why should he think that?’
‘Because I told him that the Shabtis of Akenhaten are a sect of assassins controlled by you.’
‘What?’ I moved so violently the wine in my cup slopped over. The cheetah scrambled to his feet but Ankhesenamun turned and cooed softly in his direction. The great cat stretched, amber eyes glowing at me, before sprawling back on the floor.
‘Listen to me, listen to me,’ she urged. ‘The Shabtis of Akenhaten do not exist. The gardener was seduced by Amedeta, who paid him to kill minor officials, supporters of Meryre’s circle, Atenists who appeared to have forsaken the great vision.’
‘One man!’ I exclaimed.
‘And why not?’ Ankhesenamun laughed. ‘You are Chief of Police, Mahu. There is murder and rapine in Thebes every day, whilst at night the city is as dangerous as a crocodile pool. I decided to strike at Meryre; the gardener was my weapon. At the same time I lulled Meryre’s suspicions. He believes I am opposed to my grandfather and the Children of the Kap.’
‘And what does he intend?’
‘Eventually to seize power himself.’
‘But why not confront him? Hand this information to your grandfather? Ay and the rest would tear him to pieces.’
‘What proof, Mahu? Apart from hushed conversations. And how would I convince God’s Father Ay, not to mention the rest, that I wasn’t a part of Meryre’s plot?’
‘So why did you have Rahmose killed? Meryre will think that I am responsible.’
‘Mahu, in his eyes you and the rest are already guilty. Rahmose was dangerous.’
‘He was an old soldier suffering from fever.’
‘He was dangerous to me, Mahu. God’s Father Ay had singled him out.’
Ankhesenamun paused and closed her eyes.
‘Rahmose, how can I put it, was beginning to have reservations about Meryre’s ambitions.’
‘Of course,’ I whispered. ‘And if he was suborned by Ay, Rahmose might tell God’s Father what the Princess Ankhesenamun had been involved in.’