Tutankhamun Uncovered (3 page)

The general had the artisan smuggled across the river late that night. The man looked gaunt, as did nearly all the villagers, but he appeared fit nevertheless and Horemheb could only hope the maleficent parasite was already within him, dormant but about to waken.

Dashir was over awed by his first meeting with the queen. It was most unusual for a commoner such as he to be introduced to anyone in a position of power, let alone a member of the royal family.

When he was brought into her presence the queen was sitting on a golden, throne like chair, her feet resting on a low stool. She had two hand maidens on either side, one fanning her with an ostrich plumed staff, the other holding a tray of fruit and a vessel of water. She was wearing a perfume cone upon her wig. The wax had congealed in the hair from the heat of the day and the scent of it was thick in the air. It was secured by a golden and blue glass inlaid diadem which surrounded her head, the uraes, the regal cobra, reaching up from it in the middle of her forehead. The densely plaited black wig framed her face. Large golden earlobe pendants hung either side of her cheeks. Around her neck she wore a collar of hollow gold and coloured glass beads. Her dress was of fine pleated white linen, which fell almost in a single piece to her ankles. On her feet she wore rush sandals embroidered with delicate gold thread and embellished with more coloured glass beads. Her arms, resting on the arms of her chair, were naked but for two large gold bracelets. On the fingers of her slender hands were four gold rings two with the cartouche of her husband; two with her own name.

The entire picture was so different from anything that Dashir had previously beheld that he felt compelled to fall to his knees and bow to the floor.

The queen acknowledged his salute by calling for him to raise his head but remain on his knees. She sat bolt upright, her head held high, and looked directly at him as she spoke. “You have been selected for your special skills, goldsmith. You have been selected to create beauty. Beauty which it will please the gods to behold. Please them so that they may grant long life and good health to this, my son.” She placed her right hand on her swollen belly.

“It is you who will do this according to my instruction. Should you fail in my bidding, should your work not please the gods, should my son become sick and die, likewise you will suffer his pain.”

Dashir worked hard. The queen watched him closely. She would touch his work, and complain that the gold leaf was not adhering well to the wooden frame of the texts, tear it off and throw it at him. He would fall to his knees before her and with his arms outstretched beg her forgiveness.

“I am nervous in your ever present eye, oh Great One,” he would say. “My hand, though skilful, is not steady in the light you throw upon me. Some sleep tonight will strengthen me.”

The queen let Dashir leave early that evening. While the power of her status could inflict anything on him and his family that she might wish, she knew his skills well and did not want to extinguish the creative flame within him. It was he who had gilded the magnificent statues now erected in her father’s tomb.

That night when she and her king had retired to their chambers early, Dashir, not at all confident that the queen, during her waking hours, would ever leave him alone long enough to complete his work successfully, stole back into the palace with the help of his servant friends and, by the light of candles, set to his work with renewed vigour.

The following morning, to Ankhesenamun’s astonishment and consummate delight, the gilding had been completed. The painted texts were framed in a glitter of bright gold. The gods surely would be compelled to visit the newborn and protect him from all dangers.

To Horemheb’s disappointment, Dashir had left in seemingly jubilant mood and excellent good health. The queen was equally enthralled with the completed work and, in the general’s eyes, all who shouldn’t be feeling so good were in reality in far better spirits than they had been before they had met.

As things turned out, it was Horemheb himself who felt off colour. That night a feeling of nausea overcame him and, unusually for him, he took neither food nor drink nor woman. He did not sleep, notwithstanding. No sooner had he rested back upon his couch than an uncontrollable energy sprang up within his bowels. The malevolent organism had such power that, although he tried to hold it back ultimately he was forced to deliver the rising issue into an alabaster fruit bowl lying adjacent to the bed. There was little relief from this evacuation. The movement was repeated quickly and, as his servants busied themselves frantically with collecting up the mess left by his first outburst, he propelled himself towards his toilet chambers with a speed and strength of purpose the like of which he had never before exhibited, even on the battlefield. The repetitive retching stayed with him all night and into the following day and night and the day after that. Although there was nothing to bring up but the water he tried to drink, the body continued to pump itself dry until finally there was no strength left within his aching frame to respond to the demands of the tormenting creature that lay within him.

Horemheb lay exhausted and mindless on his stinking bed. He ached for the blessed relief of oblivion. But the creature inside him was restless and the general once again found himself urgently attempting to respond to its demands by evacuating the remainder of his rapidly shrinking organs. Unfortunately for all present, this would invariably occur while he was in flight towards his toilet. There were few in the room that a piece of him did not touch.

Later in Horemheb’s life, when he himself would be king, those who had shared the dreadful experience would feel themselves blessed with the intimacy of his foul touch but not this day.

It was ten days before the general had recovered strength sufficient to show an interest in the normal affairs of state. His first and most important news brought an imperceptibly wry smile. The queen had given premature birth three days earlier. The baby was weakly and was not expected to survive the ordeal, but the mother was recovering well. He asked that his thanks for her survival be given to the gods that evening in a special ceremony and, with anticipation, smugly eased his aching body back into the cushions of his couch.

All but Ankhesenamun were appeased. Another tiny wooden box would become secreted away into a dark place within the palace.

On the night that Horemheb had chosen to deliver Tutankhamun, a rare but not unusually severe belt of electrical storms was moving over the Theban vicinity. The accompanying rains were torrential. Where the soil was unvegetated, the sand and rocks were quickly loosened and fell from the bare cliffs, driving down the ravines in a thick, red, boiling holocaust of boulders and mud. That night Pharaoh Ahmose’s tomb was lost beneath the sediment blanket left by the flood waters and three luckless tomb robbers in the act of plundering it became entrapped and suffocated by nature itself condemned, sentenced and summarily executed for their crimes.

The sickly king parted from his queen early that evening. She had lain with him a while and tried to stimulate him with lotus blossoms, her hands and her mouth, but he complained he was completely spent and had no energy to linger with her.

In the din of the thunder and the rain lashing against the walls of the palace, Horemheb walked to the king’s quarters and, saying that he wished to leave an amulet with the Pharaoh to assure the king a good night’s rest, commanded the Nubian sentinels to let him in. He paused on the threshold for a moment. It occurred to him that Seth in his wisdom was his protector this night. The general strode purposefully into the room. The noise of the large cedar doors closing behind him was drowned out by the thunder above.

The king had been given an additional sleep potion that evening to ensure he rested fully through to the morning. Horemheb had seen to that. Although all the halls were open to the sky, the king would not be disturbed by the cacophony of thunder and the rattle of the continuous downpour splattering on the floors. Should the Pharaoh awaken during the act of murder, the noise of the storm would be sufficient to extinguish his cries.

Since his design was to appear to have discovered the king in death, the general could avoid suspicion only by being brief. He hurried over to the king’s bedside and drew a long, narrow, copper rod from his tunic.

Tutankhamun was asleep on his stomach with his face towards the left. Horemheb bent close and carefully positioned the palm of his left hand with the rod lying on it such that one end was aligned with the entrance to the king’s right nostril. He knew he could not introduce it slowly; there was too much risk that the sensation would rouse the king, even from his induced stupor. Worse still, any slight movement of the king’s head might cause the rod to penetrate the cartilage. Were there any visible perforation of the skin, the entire conspiracy would be exposed. Horemheb had to be quick and he had to be accurate. He clenched the opposite end of the rod tightly with his left fist, checked that the shaft was still in line with the right nostril, and struck firmly with his right hand.

In one immediate movement, the rod drove up through the nasal tissue and perforated the thin skull wall, embedding itself in the brain mass. The young king’s head jerked back violently, but he remained unconscious. The general gave the rod a quick twist and withdrew it. An urgent, sanguine flood issued onto the bed linen, turning it a sodden crimson in just a few seconds. Horemheb quickly wiped the rod on the bloody bed clothing, returned it under the material of his tunic, and ran to the chamber door shrieking for the guards as he went.

That infamous night all who observed the rapidly paling body in the bed chamber were quick to come to the same conclusion. The king’s death was quite naturally attributed to his known malady this time a massive haemorrhaging, probably precipitated by his fever. No one, outwardly at least, suspected any wrong doing, let alone any thought that the general could have been instrumental in this horror. After all, he had been in the chamber only moments enough to discover the ailing king’s predicament.

The shock at the sudden death of the young king spread rapidly about the halls of the palace. The wailing began. Horemheb realised he must take control of the situation.

“Look to your emotions!” he bellowed. “Our early departed lord would have no wish for hysteria. Give thanks that his ka still sleeps and may not hear you. We must set ourselves to the task of awakening him in eternal life. Summon Parannefer for the preparation. We must turn to Ay for leadership. Awaken the Pharaoh! Our new lord must be present at the cleansing.”

“The queen, Excellency,” said a maidservant timidly. “Who will tell the queen?”

“The queen?” The general turned and glared down at her.

She saw the anger in his face and a cold fear overcame her. The girl fell to her knees. Horemheb realised his error and took a deep breath. He smiled one of those forced, insincere grins that were so characteristic of him.

“Permit Queen Ankhesenamun the dignity of peaceful sleep until sunrise,” he said obsequiously. “She shall grieve enough presently. No need to deny her rest as well. We must prepare the king such that she does not see the horror of his bloody state. Be about your business with haste!”

The girl bowed low to the ground and ran off with the others to get clean bedclothes.

Nakht, in charge of many things but above all the security of the king’s quarters, was probably more worried than any. “There is no doubt it was the humour, right, General?”

“No doubt at all, Vizier. There can be no thought of foul play. Besides, the security forces under your command are beyond reproach, are they not?”

“Indeed, General, indeed. Trusty servants, indeed.” Nakht gave one of his sheepish grins.

A scuffle at the entrance to the chamber caused both Horemheb and the vizier to turn their heads.

The old Ay, dragged hastily from the shallow sleep of the aged, was escorted into the king’s private suite by two chambermaids. After briefly examining the body of the boy king he turned to those assembled about him, drew a deep breath and gravely pronounced his ascendancy. “My friends,” he announced, “we have unhappily lost a sapling king and, deprived of his issue, gained an aged tree. All here know that as father of the great queen Nefertiti the gods protect her my blood is the purest of the regal line. While my energies fail me in these, the shadowed years of my life and, I fear, I will be no match for your expectations of our dear departed Tutankhamun I shall nevertheless give of my best as you know me to have done in the recent past. In so doing I shall claim of you your strongest allegiance.”

With the exception of Horemheb and his guards everyone present prostrated themselves before the Pharaoh designate. The ‘protectors’ never compromised their state of readiness.

“Rise people!” commanded Ay. “There is work to do. Our first and most immediate task is to assure our dear departed king safe embarkation on the ark that will bear him on his blissful, eternal voyage!”

The village of Pademi lay cradled in a shallow depression under the shadow of the pyramidal mountain. This great rock overlooked both the villagers and their place of work The Valley. There, on the west side of the ridge, lay the resting place of kings long past. With the help of the villagers it was from here that the Pharaoh would begin his eternal journey through the paradise of afterlife.

This evening, as every evening, The Valley drank in the dying sun, and the spirits of those few who had survived uncorrupted danced on. For those who lived in the village, sunset always took on a deep significance. It was a time to pay tribute to their own dead. The modest tombs of their forebears lay clustered on the eastern side of the ridge, just above the village boundary wall.

Stooping like a man bearing a great weight on his shoulders, Meneg eased himself down onto his knees and positioned the small offering in the centre of the colourfully decorated alcove within the small pyramidal chapel. Every day near sunset he came from his house close by in Pademi. Every day near sunset he would leave a little something to aid his parents’ survival in the underworld. Every day when he arrived at the spot he would find that the previous offering had gone, scavenged by the jackals and the vermin that infested the place. But he comforted himself in the belief that the kas of his parents first would have eaten and drunk their fill.