Valley of the Kings (15 page)

As for Tutankhamun, that brat, although he and she were married, she had not yet endured his embrace, and she vowed she never would.

She waited in the courtyard, thinking more of her father, until Meryat came. In the distance she heard the sounding of the ram's horns. The sun was setting. The courtyard was already dark. Ankhesenamun blinked, surprised, at the shadows around her. With Meryat, she left the little courtyard and returned to her mother's side.

In her bedchamber in the palace, Nefertiti sent Meryat off to bed. Alone, the Queen Regent sat before the golden mirror.

She had expected joy of this day, and she knew no joy. She had expected at least to recover some of her failing control over the people. Certainly the royal procession had brought the people of Thebes into the street by the thousands. Yet few of them had followed her into the temple.

In the golden mirror the familiar face of the Queen returned her gaze: the face of the woman Nefertiti hid within. Her beauty belonged not to her but to the people who looked on her. Her overt serenity was won at such a cost of nerve and will that she was left, now, not so much calm as exhausted. Behind this face of painted eyes and mouth, composed expression, and grave intelligence an old woman lived.

She touched her cheeks with her fingers. In the golden mirror her skin seemed flawless, but her fingertips touched the lines, the drying, flaking skin, the sagging flesh. She put her arms down and laid her head on them.

There was so much to be done, and she had no strength left. She thought of Tutankhamun. He was a silly boy, but that was not her fault; unjust, then, that she should bear the consequences of his spoiling. The child of his mother's age, he had grown up at her knee, toyed with, petted, and pampered. No one ever guessed that he would rule, with three brothers ahead of him in the succession.

She raised herself up again on her elbows and stared at herself in the mirror. The gold cast a haze around her. She seemed so young, in the mirror. When she had been young, her energy and will were boundless.

She would be strong again. She would shape Tutankhamun into a proper man, or if not, then she would take a son of his and Ankhesenamun's and make a King of him. Ankhesenamun was fecund; she had borne a child to her own father, a rarely beautiful little girl, dead now, alas. She would have stronger children by Tutankhamun. Boys. Kings.

Nefertiti's eyelids were heavy; her head ached. Tomorrow she knew she would shake off this lassitude that burdened her like an invisible demon, riding on her back and wrapping its wings over her arms. The Aten would restore her. The God needed her; none other would take his cause in Egypt. They had an agreement, the Aten and Nefertiti, never to desert one another.

She was so tired. She laid her head down again to rest. She fell asleep there, before the golden mirror.

11

The river sank to a muddy trickle along the bottom of its bed. It ran red with dust, like the blood of Osiris when his brother Set hacked him. The stubble of the millet stood in the fields along the banks, dead as Osiris. Far inland from the edge of the water, the one-armed water hoists hung useless in their frames. The red sand of the desert blew down across the black tilled land of Egypt.

In Thebes, Sennahet's landlord had thrown him into the street for not paying his rent. Now he lived with a dozen other outcasts in an abandoned building on the west bank of the Nile. He no longer went about the city seeking work. Once a day he and thousands like him swarmed into the Temple of Amun to be fed. Afterward, he gambled in the street for sips of beer. He daydreamed, skulked about looking for something to steal. He sat on the cracked mud of the dead river, flapping his hands to swat away the stinging flies. Then, in the cool evening, he crossed the river and walked into the desert.

Since the mason Hapure had told him of the secret burial of Akhenaten in the desert, Sennahet had thought endlessly of the gold that Nefertiti must have buried with her lord.

Every evening he went into the desert gorge where kings were buried and walked along the narrow valley, searching for the tomb. Often he slept there, in the desert, with the desert wind around him and the jackals barking in the distance.

He found old rooms there, deserted tombs, robbed and empty, and long corridors that led back into the earth and stopped there, stopped at nowhere. The place was haunted. His dreams were troubled. At night, as he shivered in the wind, as he sat surrounded by the weird moonlit beauty of the desert, strange mad thoughts came into his head. He imagined himself rich with Pharaoh's gold, rich beyond dreams, rich and mighty, as if here where so many kings were buried he put on a little of their splendor.

One night he went along the gorge, kicking at stones as he walked. The light of the full moon painted the walls of the gorge. Every now and then Sennahet swore aloud, and often he swore against Akhenaten, whose war against the gods of Egypt had ruined Sennahet, and whose gold would save Sennahet, if he could but find it.

The jackals yapped and prowled along the top of the cliff. A rock bounced down the rutted wall. Sennahet dragged his feet. His eyes ranged back and forth across the gorge and his mind brooded on his wrongs. He knew nothing of any danger until the lion growled.

He stopped. All over his scalp his hair prickled painfully erect. He was looking forward down the gorge; here the walls pinched close together and a fresh slide of rock half hid the path.

Now his ears caught the far-off shout and the beating of a drum, just loud enough for him to hear. Someone was hunting lions.

In the moonlit gulch ahead there was the low throaty mutter of an alerted lion. Somehow Sennahet had walked into the field of the hunt. He was between the lion and its way of escape from the beaters.

He swore in a shaky voice. Casting around him, he sought some weapon, a stick, or even a large rock. The drums were getting louder. In the distance, beyond the lion, a horse whinnied. When he faced the gulch again, the lion was walking into view down the narrow throat of the gorge.

Sennahet let out a scream of terror. He spun around and ran the other way down the gorge.

His breath sawed back and forth through his lungs. He flung a hasty look over his shoulder. The lion was trotting after him. Its mane shook with each step. Its broad face was intent on him. He screamed again and his legs churned and he sprinted over the stony ground.

The lion's roar deafened him. The beast was right behind him. On the slope ahead of him was the doorway of an empty tomb. He lunged toward it. On hands and knees he scrambled up the loose hillside of rubble toward this refuge. The ground gave way beneath him and began to slide, and he clawed up through the moving slope to the mouth of the tomb and flung himself down across the threshold.

The lion roared below him. Panting, his arms and knees bleeding, Sennahet staggered to his feet. At the base of the slope the lion was pacing back and forth, its head reared back and its yellow eyes glowing on its prey.

Higher in the gorge, the sound of galloping horses racketed off the walls and chariot wheels ground over the earth. The lion's tail twitched. Sennahet was trembling. He pawed at his face. The doorway where he stood was the only foothold on the whole sheer slope behind him. He was trapped here; he had caged himself up for the lion. A trumpet blew, just around the bend, and the drums thundered. The lion crouched. So might Sekhmet crouch, goddess of revenge, stalking her victims. Sennahet shrank back, wondering which god he had offended, and the lion sprang.

He screamed again. The great beast bounded up the slope in three great leaps. Sennahet fell to his knees. Prayers poured forth from his lips.

Down the gorge two horses charged, a chariot flying at their heels. The lion had reached the doorway; it wheeled, so close that its lashing tail brushed across Sennahet's shoulder, and its roar rolled forth across the gorge. Sennahet covered his head with his arms. He prayed for a quick death. The lion stank of blood and musk. Below, a voice cried out in command. The lion crashed into Sennahet and knocked him down.

Sennahet whimpered. He lay still on the cold earth, waiting for the pain to begin. The beast was sprawled over him; his mouth and nose were stuffed with its rough hair. Then Sennahet heard voices, and hands touched him.

“Are you hurt? Ah, fellow, look at me!”

His ribs ached. He gasped; he had never felt so alive, so real. The lion lay dead beside him, an arrow in its ribs. The hands on his shoulders tightened. The musical, unmasculine voice above him spoke again: “Are you hurt? Tell me that I may tend you.”

He raised his head. A young woman stood before him, her brows drawn together. Her bow was still in her hand. It was she who had slain the lion. On her head was a crown. Sennahet fell forward again and, bending, made his bow to Ankhesenamun.

The Queen Ankhesenamun, who has rescued Sennahet from the lion, took him back with her to the great palace of Pharaoh, on the west bank of the Nile across from the city of Thebes. There she ordered that Sennahet's name be entered into the lists of her servants.

Of these there were hundreds, and Sennahet, being unskilled, was given menial tasks to do. Yet the Queen noticed him often. Now and then she gave him a coin, or a sweet; whenever she saw him, she smiled.

In the isolated village of Kalala, Hapure woke before dawn. He was ill with the plague that had taken his wife. His teeth chattered, and he wrapped the bedclothes around himself and turned his face to the wall.

He was afraid and alone. His wife was buried and his daughter had deserted him when he fell ill. He lay shivering in the dark. His stomach heaved and his bowels burned.

He would not foul his own bed. He dragged himself out to the privy. The sun was rising, a pitiless fire that scorched the sky itself, hazy with the dry dust of Egypt. Hapure knelt down in the yard behind his house and gave thanks that Ra had survived the fearful night.

He anointed himself with a palmful of oil and dressed. From a niche in the wall of his house he took coins. He set forth to walk down to Thebes.

Kalala was set deep in a dry gorge, in the desert above the fertile plain of Thebes. There was no water there, no place to grow food; the families who lived there served Pharaoh in the Valley of the Dead, and Pharaoh had always fed them. But now Pharaoh had forgotten them. Hapure walked along the narrow street, rock-hard under his feet, past house after house that stood open and deserted. Nearly everyone had fled.

Hapure reached the edge of the village and walked down the thread of the path that would take him to the plain. As he walked he saw before him the whole of Thebes. He saw the naked fields turning to dust in the wind and the deserted villages crumbling on the high ground. He saw the palace of Pharaoh, covering enough land to support a whole city, and surrounded now with soldiers to keep the desperate poor from stealing what was the King's. He saw the gleaming needles of Amun standing above the Imperial Temple to the south, just beyond the dead river.

The ferry was tied up to its landing stage. Under its keel was dry mud. The river had retreated down into the lowest part of its bed and left the ferry on dry land. Hapure needed no boat to cross the Nile into Thebes. The river at its deepest ran only knee-high. He waded across it and went up the slope on the far side.

People slept there, on the dry mud along the river. The flies buzzed busily around them. Only the flies were lively; only the flies moved. As if they were already dead, the people there sat and stared into nothing. Hapure wound his way through them. He did not look at them. Especially he did not look at the children. There were few children left, few old people, now that even the strongest suffered.

He trudged into the dusty street of Thebes. His coin tight in his fist, he started his search. He coughed to clear his throat of the dust. His legs were weak and his knees hurt. He went first to the shop where three days before he had found bread for sale. Then they had sold each loaf for its weight in gold. Now the shop was empty, and the bake ovens behind it were cold. Hapure went on to the next shop.

The temple granaries had given up the last of Amun's grain many long weeks before. Whatever bread was baked now was made of grain from private hoarding, and those caches were also emptying. Hapure went from shop to shop and found none selling bread.

Exhausted, he sank down on the threshold of an empty house and stared into the street. The sun turned the dust- filled sky a brazen red. Down at the end of the street, where the houses stood wall to wall and flush with the street, a woman put her head out through the door and saw him and hastily withdrew again. Hapure looked away. He had learned to avoid other people, who begged and stole and made him unhappy.

The fever was working in Hapure's blood. He put his face down on his hands. The dust and the heat made his head pound. He started up onto his feet again, to go on, and his knees gave way and dumped him down in the street.

His eyes itched. He hacked out a cough, trying to scrape the dust from his throat.

He did not try to stand again, but only dragged himself on his arms back to the shelter of the wall. He tipped his head back against the wall. He felt emptied and finished. The shuttered houses around him were like blank faces, turned away from him. In an hour, he might be a corpse in the street, eaten by flies.

He considered that dispassionately at first. But as he thought of his death, his passion returned, and he staggered to his feet and went on through Thebes in his search for food.

Red dust had drifted into the corner of the balcony outside the Queen Regent's window. Meryat put her hand on the railing. Her skin was prickly with sweat. She felt dirty. She stood looking across the courtyard, her weary mind a blank.

Four date palms shaded this side of the building. Their great fronds stirred and rustled in the wind. From the brick courtyard below came the scratch-scratch of a broom. It was the lout Sennahet, whom Ankhesenamun had taken in, sweeping the walk. Meryat sighed.

From the room behind her came the fretful voice of Nefertiti, calling to her. Meryat went back through the curtains.

Three girls sat by the head of Nefertiti's couch, stirring the sullen air with ostrich-feather fans. The Queen Regent lay on her back. An ivory rest supported her head. Fever burned like hateful blossoms in her cheeks. Her lips were the color of ash.

“Meryat, bring me wine—I am so parched.”

Meryat went to the chest by the door. On it was painted a scene of the Queen's married life. The servant took her eyes from that. She wished that Nefertiti would let her remove such things from the royal rooms. She poured wine into a cup figured with sacred words and signs.

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that no one was watching her, and she sipped a mouthful of the Queen's wine. Since Nefertiti had fallen ill, Meryat had tasted all her food.

“Meryat, where is my daughter? You said that she was coming. Where is she?”

At that moment the Queen Ankhesenamun entered the room. The servants knelt and put their foreheads to the floor, Meryat among them.

“Mother, I am here.”

At the sound of her daughter's voice, Nefertiti started up from her couch. On her knees, Meryat crossed the room and gave her the cup and pressed her, unresisting, back onto the bed. Ankhesenamun sat on the foot of the couch. It was shaped like a great lotus blossom; the curled tips of the petals framed the young Queen's shoulders.

“Where have you been?” Nefertiti said to her. “And dressed like a—I know not what. My child, there are things required of Egypt's Queen—”

“Not now, Mother,” said Ankhesenamun.

Nefertiti's mouth curved into a weak smile. Meryat dipped a linen napkin into water scented with jasmine and bathed the face of the Queen Regent. The fan girls had returned quietly to their work.

“You could be beautiful, you know,” Nefertiti said.

“I have no wish to be,” Ankhesenamun said. She stroked her hands down her knees. The tendons in her wrists were like bowstrings. Her long legs were sheathed in charioteer's boots. She took Nefertiti's hand in hers.

“Ah, you are so warm!”

“I am too dry even to breathe,” Nefertiti said. “Meryat, another cup of wine. Yet I cannot help but think how many of my people suffer this same sickness, without a Meryat to tend them and wine to dull the pain.”

Meryat took the cup back to the chest where the ewers of wine were kept. Furtively, again she tasted the wine.

“Where is His Majesty?” the Queen Regent asked. “Have you not sent for him?”

Meryat turned, the cup in her hand, and for an instant her gaze met Ankhesenamun's. She lowered her eyes. On her knees she returned to the Queen Regent.

“Rise, Meryat,” Ankhesenamun said. “You go about naturally in my mother's presence, you may always do so in mine.”