Valley of the Kings (19 page)

Hapure said nothing, his eyes on the ground. His heart was sick. He had failed the King and should be dead.

“It was at Pharaoh's command that you were attacked,” Sennahet pressed him. “Does that not anger you? Now, tell me where the gold is, and we will avenge ourselves together.”

Hapure looked at him with horror. “Vengeance! No—no—Pharaoh is always right. If I failed him, then it is he who must take vengeance against me.”

Sennahet began to argue. Hapure rose, carrying his throbbing head carefully on his shoulders, and went into his hut.

“I should have left you there to die,” Sennahet shouted at him.

“I wish you had,” Hapure muttered.

He sat down in a dark corner of his hut and brooded on his failures. Sennahet went away and did not come back for the rest of the day.

In the early morning, when Hapure was still asleep, Sennahet returned and shook him awake. Hapure cried out; the pain in his head wakened when he did.

“You fool,” Sennahet shouted at him. “Pharaoh is right, is he? Then come with me! Come see!”

Hapure was trying to lie down again on his pallet. He pushed away Sennahet's hands. In the dark room Sennahet was but a shadow that pulled and tugged on him.

“Come with me. I will show you why Pharaoh struck you down.”

Hapure rubbed his eyes with his fists. Sennahet was squatting before him in the dark.

“I will go,” Hapure said. He knew it was his duty to find out what sin he had done.

Sennahet led him down the narrow path from his village to the Royal Gorge. They traveled single file, like jackals. The sun was hot. Hapure grew weak and tired. On the way down the steep side of the gorge, he stumbled, and Sennahet caught him in his arms. Hapure thrust him away. Panting, he sank down on the path and laid his head in his arms.

“I can go no farther.”

“Only a little more,” Sennahet said.

Hapure raised his head. He saw that they were nearly to the place of the secret tomb.

They went down the last few feet of the path to the floor of the gorge. Now Hapure could hear voices ahead of them. He put out his hand to Sennahet, and the other man took him by the hand and they went together to the side of the gorge and skulked through the shadows there. They bent their knees and traveled like thieves through the shadows. They went around the bend in the gorge.

Before them now lay the widening of the gorge where the secret tomb was dug. Hapure froze in his steps. His heart grew heavy. The tomb was secret no more. Three lines of soldiers encircled it, and three heavy sleds waited before it. Already two of them were piled high with goods. The entranceway to the tomb had been laid open. A steady stream of men came forth from it, bearing the grave goods of the King on their backs, and these they stacked up on the sleds.

“They are robbing it,” Hapure whispered. He struck his breast with his fist. “They are robbing Pharaoh's house.”

Sennahet whispered, “Be quiet—if they find us we shall die.”

Hapure knew that was so. He knew now that was why he had been struck down. At first he told himself that these men had lied to him. It was not Pharaoh's work, what happened here. But the soldiers around the tomb were Pharaoh's soldiers. The oxen that stood in the traces before the sleds were the royal oxen.

“I have seen enough,” he said. “Let us go.”

He and Sennahet returned along the gorge, hiding as they had done before. The men of Pharaoh did not hide; they went about their work openly, carelessly. Hapure remembered that the soldier who had attacked him had called him a fool. For what: for obeying Pharaoh? His head throbbed and pounded unmercifully. The wound would ache him until he died. For obeying Pharaoh he would die.

For the first time he saw what death was. The priests taught that death was a passageway to life, but that was a lie. Death was the end. Death was horrible. He climbed the path after Sennahet, but his mind was not on the work of his feet, scrambling up the stony bank. His mind was on death. It was all a lie. Even when Kings died that was the end of them, and their successors were not reincarnations of the eternal spirit of the King, but mere men, who plundered the tombs of their predecessors. The King was only another man, richer, perhaps, but still one of a doomed race, that scratched and crawled across the earth until the time came when they should die. Then other creatures fed on them, their flesh was consumed, and their lives went for nothing.

The sun was heavy on him, greasing his skin with sweat. He stumbled along after Sennahet across the desert to his village.

Some few families had returned to their homes in the village. The women were spreading out their linen in the sun at the edge of the houses; they stared at Hapure and Sennahet as they passed. The two men went into Hapure's garden.

“You were right,” Hapure said. “I should have helped you steal the gold. Then at least we would be comfortable. I was deluded. I was the slave of the priests.”

“Yes,” Sennahet said. His eyes gleamed.

“Now it is too late. I understand now, but it is too late.”

“Our moment will come,” Sennahet said.

In the midafternoon Ankhesenamun sent Meryat away across the Nile to the bazaar. Meryat did not go; she slipped into the garden behind the Queen's chambers and hid under the window, and presently she heard the Queen exchanging greetings with the Vizier and Horemheb.

The Queen said, “What news from the north?”

The wheezy voice that answered was the Vizier's. “The trouble has passed, although not without cost. There were men killed. We had to bribe the governor.”

“I have sent another two hundred chariots north,” Horemheb said.

“Without any authority?” The Queen sounded angry. “Do you think you are a kinglet, General?”

“A minor movement of troops,” Horemheb said.

Meryat under the window listened keenly to all this. They spoke of Tutankhamun.

“He shows no interest in his role. No understanding.” The Vizier was standing nearby the window. His tone was flat and lifeless. He was an old man and Meryat was afraid of him. He said, “I served Amenhotep and Akhenaten. To see the crowns they wore on such a head—”

“Peace,” Ankhesenamun said.

“He is vain and silly, and dangerous,” Horemheb said, crisp. “Let him take the notion, he will have us all knifed.”

The Queen's voice grew indistinct. She was moving away from the window, pacing down the room. Meryat could picture her, taut and lithe as a lioness. The servant closed her eyes. They were right about Tutankhamun. A vain, silly boy. Yet he was her lover, and she loved him.

“He is a child,” Ankhesenamun said. “Easily managed. I mean to keep him on the throne—I can rule through him.”

“You do not know him, my Queen,” Horemheb said.

The Vizier spoke, his voice coming from directly above Meryat's head; she startled, turning cold as death, and pressed herself against the rough wall. He said, “She is right. There must be a King—there is none but Tutankhamun.”

“The power to destroy us is at the tips of his fingers,” Horemheb said. Meryat hated his round, convincing voice. “Let him merely guess at what we do—”

“Let him make a son, first,” Vizier said. “The line must not be broken.”

“He is harmless,” said the Queen.

“I tell you, he is no stranger to murder,” said Horemheb. “I myself heard him order a man slain for no more than obeying Pharaoh's will.”

“What?” The Queen spoke sharply. She was nearer the window now than before. Confronting Horemheb. “When did he do this?”

“There is a tomb hidden, somewhere in the desert. He found a man who knew where it was, and when the poor peasant told him, Pharaoh had him killed.”

Meryat bit her lips. He would not do such a deed. A vain, silly boy, only that. She rubbed her cheek against the wall.

There was an odd silence in the room above her. Finally Ankhesenamun said, “A tomb? Whose tomb?”

The Vizier said, “Why would he murder one who did him service?”

“To hide the disservice he himself did,” Horemheb said. “He robbed the tomb of everything save the body.”

The Vizier made a choking sound in his throat. “Biasphemy!” As he spoke he moved away from the window. Meryat sighed with relief. “I shall report this to the High Priest—”

“The High Priest is even now with the King,” Horemheb said, “advising him how to avoid the vengeance of the gods for this sacrilege.”

“He has robbed the tomb?” Ankhesenamun asked. “This cannot be the truth—he, not even he would dare—to rob my father's tomb!”

Meryat burst off across the garden at a run. The Queen's voice, shrill and strong, followed her across the garden to the hedge. “Let them who call my father scoundrel look on this—” Meryat dashed around a corner out of hearing.

Much later, in the evening, Meryat returned to the Queen's chambers. Ankhesenamun was sitting by a lamp, dressed in her nightdress. Meryat gave her the box that Ankhesenamun had sent her for. The Queen put it aside with only a look. She thanked Meryat, her eyes elsewhere. Her face was like stone. Meryat knew that Horemheb had prevailed, that they were set to murder the king.

Tutankhamun walked once around the Presentation Chair, admiring the way the gold was worked. Such a thing as this was fit for the King, an ornament to him. The little scene on the back depicted a King in the Crown of Sacrifice with his wife before him bowing and anointing him with the oils of life. The arms of the chair were shaped like winged serpents. The royal shield that bore the King's name carried the names of Akhenaten. It must have been made to celebrate the marriage of one of his daughters. Tutankhamun was unskilled at reading but he recognized the symbols at a glance. He would have the goldsmith of the palace pound out his brother's name and replace it with his own. He walked once more around the throne. It was beautiful work, and he grew light with pride at his own discernment. Let those who thought him stupid see how rare his senses were.

A servant crept in the door. Tutankhamun said, “You may speak.”

“Life and death of Egypt, the High Priest of Amun awaits.”

“I shall come.”

Tutankhamun already wore a cloak heavy with gold. He needed no more to go out into the night. The High Priest awaited him in the next room, the Audience Hall, and at the approach of the King the bearers hurried out across the wide room with his open chair. With the High Priest running beside him, the King was borne in his chair through the dark courtyard to the palace gate, and then across the sleeping plain of the west bank of Thebes.

They traveled at a steady pace. The King's cheek grew chilly from the night wind. Irritated, he was about to call for a scarf, but then the litter carried him swiftly in through the gate in a high wall.

They set him down. The High Priest, out of breath, bowed before him. The priest was in haste; his eyes were white with excitement. They went into the house before them.

This was the workshop of the royal embalmers. No one else was there now. In the back of the central room, on a table, lay a corpse.

The King and the priest went at once to this table.

The priest said, short, “I shall speak the rites, your Majesty. Do nothing—say nothing. The slightest mistake, and the magic is fruitless.”

With surprise Tutankhamun saw that the priest was frightened. He himself was unafraid. He looked down at the table, where the body of his brother Akhenaten lay, last of all the objects taken from his tomb.

The linen wrappings were stained dark from the oils that had sanctified them three years before. All the amulets and masks and shields that usually covered up the wrapped body had been taken away, and the corpse looked nude. Even the curved gold bands that held the body were gone. The priest was speaking ancient words over the body. With a clap of his hands, he drew a knife and, leaning over the body, he slit the wrappings.

Tutankhamen jumped at the sound the knife blade made in the old linen. A tingle ran cold down his spine. He reminded himself that he was the King now.

The priest was saying, “Lose thy name, and be powerless.” He pulled at the wrappings on the body. “Lose thy shape, and be powerless.” The king swallowed the dryness in his throat. The priest freed the arms of the body, which had been crossed over its breast, and stretched out one arm down along the thigh. So were women posed; men were always buried with their arms crossed.

The priest said, “Lose thy seed, and be powerless.” With the tip of his knife he cut off the phallus of the King.

Tutankhamun uttered a low cry. The priest wheeled on him. His eyes burned. Neither of them spoke again. The priest returned to his work. He laid the knife on the table and passed his hands over the body and made secret gestures. At last he backed away from the table.

Tutankhamun followed him through the darkened workshop. The place stank of natron. For the first time the King noticed how cluttered it was with tools and tables.

“That will protect us, I hope,” the priest said.

“If it does not…” Tutankhamun said.

They were at the door; the High Priest glanced at him, his forehead puckered, and his small mouth pursed. In a dry voice he said, “I stand in more danger than you, Glory of Egypt. You are the master of all powers.”

Tutankhamun heard these words with an inward shudder. He did not feel master of any magic now. He went forward through the door into the dark courtyard. There his litter waited. The priest bowed down before him and said ritual words to him. The King stood staring away into the dark. He put his hand down between his thighs and touched his organ. He longed to hold onto it, as a little boy might, falling.

The bearers brought over his litter. He climbed in among the cushions and they took him away to the palace.

In his innermost chamber a woman awaited him. He stopped on the threshold, startled at her appearance. It was one of his Queen's waiting women; he did not know her name. Her face was haggard. Alarmed, he stepped backwards away from her. She did not prostrate herself. She came at him, her hands outstretched, like a vulture.