Tutankhamun Uncovered (23 page)

A feeling of fatigue came over the general. Was it the staring golden eyes or the heat of the foundry? Or both of them? He ordered his entourage to escort him back to his chambers.

The foundry fires burned throughout that night as they had done since orders had been placed for the grave goods. The flickering orange glow brought the eyes alive to all who looked at them and, when the time came to break their labours, nothing but disturbed sleep.

Horemheb’s sleep was no less disturbed that night. When he finally lost consciousness it was not for long. An hour past midnight and he was rudely awakened by a shrill wailing from outside the chamber. He rose up on one elbow. The noise clearly came from within the palace halls.

‘A time for mourning, yes, but not every day! Gods save us! Why is she doing this to me?’ He believed it to be Ankhesenamun but it was not she. The wailing continued and he was compelled to get out of bed. Emerging into the great hall in some disarray, without his headdress, which was still on its pedestal, and his loincloth, unsecured, hanging about his waist and swinging inelegantly between his legs, he called out for the unfortunate mourner.

“Oh, Queen who grieves! Show yourself!”

He stumbled into a hallway and came upon his guards. They were in the act of wrestling an old woman from a prone position on the stone floor. Reacting to the general’s bellowing, they raised their heads and came to attention. The sight of their immodest master would be food for some stories in the barracks later, but for now the guards’ faces were expressionless.

The woman, continuing to moan, hung limp between them. She looked very old but in those times women aged quickly. She might have been little more than forty years of age. Horemheb could not see her face but he could tell that this was not the queen. The hair of her wig was plaited in multiple ropes and well shaped. Her clothing was in disarray but only because she had prostrated herself. Clearly her clothing was of some quality. She had several gold bracelets on her skinny arms, earrings, and rings about her

bony fingers. She was not of low caste.

“Who is she? What is her business here?” scowled the fatigued general.

“She burst in, sir, before we could stop her. We did not want to strike her. She is old and frail. She carries no weapons.”

The woman continued to wail.

“What can she want?” yelled the insomniac, irritated almost to the point of insanity. “Speak your business, old woman. No one enters here without specific business with his Excellency. Your business. Speak! Quickly, speak!”

She carried on wailing.

Frustrated with this untimely interruption, Horemheb lost all patience. He grabbed at one of the guards’ daggers and pulled it from its sheath. He brought the blade up under the thin, arching body with a single turning motion that gathered speed in the upswing. As he did so the old hag’s head raised itself and a pair of large, yellowed eyes looked directly and fixedly into his.

His arm was still moving as his fingers relaxed their grip. The knife fell to the floor and clattered to one side. He knew this woman. He regained his composure and shouted at the guards. “Loose her and leave!”

The two curious soldiers ensured the old lady had found her feet, then let go of her and left the hall, closing the great cedar doors behind them.

The woman continued to stare the general directly in the eyes.

“Please sit, mother of Mutnodjme. How can I be forgiven for the welcome I have given you?”

To achieve his ultimate ambition, Horemheb needed this woman’s daughter as his principal wife. The line was most suitable like his, it had no blood connection with the family of the heretic. To become king by ascendency and not by force of arms, the marriage match had to be absolutely correct and visible to the people as such. He had had designs on this daughter several years since. He could not afford in any way to alienate her family.

Horemheb took the old lady’s arm and guided her gently to a couch. As she sat down she jerked her arm away from him in a gesture of repugnance. She did not take her eyes from him for a moment.

Once seated she spoke. Her voice was hoarse. “Oh, Horemheb,” she began, “what have you done? How you have disgraced the name of this family.”

“I know not of that which you speak, mother of Mutnodjme.”

“Indeed, General? Indeed? Then tell this ‘ageing old hag’ for I believe you have called me such in other company many a time or two before...”

“My lady, please...”

“...Tell me why you killed our king.”

Horemheb was struck dumb with so direct an accusation. How could she possibly know? The adrenalin of fear now filled his mind with panic. Had she been witness to the act? He searched for a convincing reply.

“My lady, you cannot be serious in this. For, if you are, you hurt me deeply and I know that cannot be your intent. Our families have grown so close of late. You well appreciate my feelings for your living daughter that I seek her hand in marriage when she comes of age.”

The old woman’s eyes grew wider and, her brow creasing deeply down its centre, she blazed back at him. “You have not answered me, General Horemheb! Answer my accusation!”

The general took a few seconds to think.

“I underestimate you, mother of Mutnodjme. The depth of your grief has brought out the years of aggression you have hitherto been able to suppress. Am I to become the target of this release? If so, let it be. Whatever I am able to contribute to satisfy your needs, I am only too willing to provide. But I cannot satisfy you through admission of such a heinous crime. Better I kill myself than admit to that which I did not do.”

So saying, he dramatically bowed to the floor, picked up the fallen dagger and offered it to her. As it lay cradled in his open hands he nervously contemplated her physical abilities. He need not have worried. She did not reach for the instrument.

“Better you kill me as you did the king and now!” she gestured, raising her chin to expose her narrow throat. “But you will be found out, my General, regardless of my demise. My daughter knows my mind on this matter. As you lie with her in your marriage bed and for years thereafter you will be forever affeared that she might raise her hand against you in the night, while you slumber, to avenge the death that you so cruelly contrived to satisfy your avarice for the throne of the two lands. Live in fear, Horemheb. Live and die in fear.”

She slowly got up, turned and quietly left the hall through a side entrance.

Horemheb did not go after her. She might talk more to others but she would not be believed by enough to make a difference. After all, there was no proof, and she was old. The old have visions. They imagine things. Few would believe her rantings. The publicity would be confined to the family circle and he could weather that. He might have to think more about how he might deal with his most intimate personal security with Mutnodjme but that was yet some years away. There was much wooing still to be done.

The general secured his loincloth and shuffled back into his bedchamber. The apparent zeal with which he was directing the preparations for the king’s embarkation to the afterlife would be proof enough of his love for Tutankhamun. His grief at the loss would be visible to all. No one could suspect him of any crime. This thought satisfied him immensely and he slept well and soundly for what remained of that night.

Chapter Eight

Howard Carter’s successes as overseer in the Upper Nile made him a prime candidate for reassignment as Inspector of Antiquities to sites in the north. He didn’t exactly feel he was getting stale in his work on the Upper Nile, but a change of scenery would be quite acceptable. The opportunity to put the stamp of his style of doing things on the only other district of importance in Egypt was irresistible.

As things turned out, the move was to cement a bridgehead in his career. What was about to happen during his tenureship of the Lower Nile would earn him a reputation for immovable stubbornness that would stay with him throughout his life. At the same time it would set him irretrievably apart from the class to which he most aspired, and he would attach to himself a stigma that would ensure that however remarkable any future achievement there would never be one hint of professional recognition from those who under normal circumstances might be considered his peers.

So, some serious misfortune lay just around the corner, and it was his nemesis, the French, who visited it upon him just a few arrogant, wealthy, well-connected and inebriated Europeans nothing more, nothing less.

Georges hadn’t wanted to come to Egypt in the first place. He was idle at home and his mother had insisted he needed the education. “Travel in Napoleon’s footsteps,” she had encouraged romantically.

“The place is full of wogs and big, broken buildings, Mama.”

“You spend too much time around the house. It will do you good to get away. It will do me good. I need some time to myself. If you covet your allowance, you had better travel!”

He knew she didn’t want to be alone, she just wanted privacy. He wanted to keep his allowance. “I will only go if you allow me to take my friends. They may need this education, too.”

And five young Frenchmen arrived in Cairo. Within a few days, their early familiarity with the more affluent bars in the city had added nine more of their countrymen. After eighteen society parties, a couple of dozen various ladies, and a string of bar hops, it was time to take a short trip to see what new delights might lie in store upriver.

Georges was becoming accustomed to the place. He knew he had little to look forward to when he went home. Life would fall back into a predictable routine. The sexual favours of a proliferation of debutantes were always gratefully received, but he felt like a stallion in a field walled in, unable to do anything else but eat, sleep and service the chosen. There would be no purpose in his life but to wait on his father’s death.

Here in Egypt things were different the atmosphere, the people and, above all, the surroundings. When he returned to France he would have something that few others had, experiences the like of which his friends could never comprehend. Now, all of a sudden, he found he had the desire to feel the essence of a place that was truly different.

Jacques, however, did not. One more chance to get pissed and have a bloody good time at someone else’s expense.

That particular morning they all carelessly and indulgently imbibed a late champagne breakfast at the Continental Savoy Hotel. For their forthcoming excursion, Jacques ordered a case of red wine, a dozen sticks of fresh bread from the hotel bakery, and drew from his own personal cache a large tin of finely matured Brie. With these materials gathered up in a small, open topped tea chest, and with a single Arab bearer in tow, the party of youngsters took a horse drawn carriage to the wharf side.

The river trip was quiet and uneventful. Georges sat on the side of the boat with his sandals cutting a slice through the water. Jacques, seeking the shade of the sail, sat uncomfortably on his case of wine and watched the river traffic.

At the end of the short trip, the party of Frenchmen rolled off the sailboat in some disarray, each of them taking a different and evidently aimless route from the riverside. Georges, yelling at the top of his voice to overpower the rantings of the profusion of Arab salesmen buzzing around each of the visitors, directed his friends towards a line of tethered donkeys. The sad looking animals were standing next to the mud brick wall of a small shelter, their heads down and their ears mechanically twitching amidst a cloud of teeming flies.

It was as well there was a step to assist each of them in mounting. Jacques nevertheless somehow managed to get onto his donkey facing to the rear. Grabbing the whisking tail of the unfortunate beast, he made a gesture as if he were holding reins and about to take off at a gallop, albeit in reverse. Evolutionary progress has blessed the nether regions of a donkey with the flexible muscle tone of a flautist’s lips. Jacques pulled on the tail hairs. The flatulent animal responded by evacuating itself with a timpanous roar executed with considerable force and a resonance that only this animal’s capacious intestines were capable of. Those in his audience were in the right humour to appreciate the orchestration and applauded the young man’s efforts by swirling their hats about in the air and cheering loudly.

Georges kicked his donkey forward and signalled his group to follow.

Sensibility returned to Jacques as he realised his donkey was now un-tethered and free to move and take its position in the line of animals now forming up behind their leader. This was too late, too casual, and too inefficiently connected with his musculature to permit him to quickly correct his position on the donkey’s back. Worse still, the donkey’s decision to take its place in line was immediate and irrevocable and most effectively connected to its actions, and before he could summon the presence of mind to jump off with dignity, Jacques found himself propelled from the backside of the animal headoverheels to the ground. Happily for his pride, the donkey had not left a deposit to break his fall, and the remainder of the group did not turn to look, each concentrating hard on maintaining a secure seat and the way ahead.

The donkey master grabbed the animal’s halter and guided it back to the upset rider. Jacques picked himself up, dusted himself off, remounted in the correct direction this time, and urged his shabby steed to follow his thirteen colleagues. The animal advanced sidestep up the incline and onto a dry bank raised between two irrigated fields.

When he caught up with his friends, they were still talking about his donkey’s posterior vocal cords and commenting about Jacques’ ability to play the instrument with such professional vulgarity. As time and distance passed, however, merriment gave away to uncomfortable silence. The rolling gait of the animals began to tear at the Frenchmen’s untrained thighs, and the consciousness of physical discomfort rudely replaced their earlier amusement.

The necropolis at Saqqara is dominated by an eroded, sand draped, but still visibly stepped and colossal pyramid. Twenty pyramids of varying sizes and frequency dot this desert skyline. All are situated within a mile or so of the west bank of an old watercourse of the Nile and, to the enthusiast, provide an overwhelming resource for study. The ragged group now descending on this holy place of the dead, however, was not remotely connected with this prestigious class.