Egypt Read online

  32

  As we lay together once more, beside the lit lamp, a memory flashed through my mind of men and women, dazed with dreams, lying together in dark shadows. And then suddenly a woman’s face, sorrowful, rose in my mind’s eye, looking at me sadly. It was my wife, Tanefert. A door back to my old life opened briefly, and the pain of what I had done, as I recognized it in her eyes, touched me. But then the golden bliss persuaded me away into its glorious light, I felt my bones soften, my skin become light, and long waves of pleasure began to pass through me.

  Much later, I awoke in the dark. The oil lamp had gone out. Suddenly I was certain someone else was in the room. I heard a sound, like a small laugh. I listened to the silence, my nerves straining. The darkness seemed alive, shifting with presences. I sat up.

  ‘Who’s there?’ I whispered.

  Again the strange little sound–laughter, or perhaps something moving in the dark like a tiny animal. My skin prickled. I stared into the blackness, seeing brief stars of light, and passing patterns of colour; and then I made out a small, dark shape standing at the edge of the couch. I stared harder. A little face suddenly swam out of the shadows: my son. Amenmose. He looked at me, and I was so happy to see him; but he was not smiling.

  ‘When can we go fishing, Father?’ he whispered.

  I heard the words, but his mouth didn’t move at all. He began to cry, and as he did so, his face crumbled and began to dissolve before my eyes. Fear like freezing water poured down my body. I leapt up to catch him, but he was gone, vanished; and in the darkness I suddenly discovered something else waiting at my feet. It was heavy. I lifted it up. Khety’s dead head was in my hands. His eyes were shut, but his mouth was wide open, a sticky brick of opium wedged in it, and he was screaming with rage–

  Inanna had her arms around me. I was shaking and shouting, my breath jagged, panic trapped like a wild animal in my chest. My legs moved madly, as if spiders were running all over them. I pushed her off, and ran across the room, desperate to escape; I threw the doors open, and ran down a passageway, hitting walls, feeling nothing, until suddenly I found myself in the compound yard. I looked up. The moon was high in the sky. Her bony white light illuminated the figures passed out on the ground; but these began to rise up before me, muttering, their hands reaching out to catch me. I ran towards the compound gates, but suddenly Inanna was standing there before me. I stopped. She came towards me, but I panicked again; then someone gripped me from behind, and dragged me to the ground. I heard myself screaming from far away, and I heard laughter and curses. And then I was trussed like a captured animal by my wrists and ankles, and carried back inside, back into Inanna’s chamber. She made me lie down beside her, and she soothed me. I knew what I needed to restore me to peace: a new draught of golden liquid. She prepared it for me, and like a baby I took it; and I once more let go of the world, and entered the golden light. And somewhere deep inside me, I knew I was now truly lost.

  33

  ‘He is here,’ Inanna said, shaking me awake.

  She was already dressed, and the sun was high in the sky. I struggled to come to my senses; every morning when I awoke now, the walls wavered, and the floor rose and fell with each breath. Inanna looked apprehensive. She led me quickly to a smaller chamber, away from her own.

  ‘Whatever happens, promise me: do not show yourself. Stay hidden here until I return for you. If he finds you…’

  For once she looked strangely vulnerable. She kissed me, and vanished from the chamber. Outside, I could hear the shouts of men, the clattering of horses’ hooves, and laughter. I lay back on the couch, and closed my eyes to stop myself feeling sick. But my legs itched with anxiety. I could not keep still. Then, in the blank space in my head, Khety’s face appeared to me again. We were in the dark alleyway in Thebes; he was staring at me, with a look of terrible disappointment. I sat up, feeling a sharp stab of guilt. There was something I had to do.

  I rose, and dressed myself, and carefully made my way along the passageway that led to the compound yard. The buildings were empty. The women and children had vanished. When I looked into the yard I saw Inanna and all her henchmen gathered together. Three men were lined up, on their knees, bound like captives, their heads hanging down. Simut, Nakht and Zannanza. How many days had passed since I last saw them?

  Inanna was conferring with a man. He had red hair. I recognized his face at once: I had seen him in the great shadowy hall of the Hittites. Now he was here. Aziru. He turned to examine his prizes, one by one. His face was animated by an intense anger that seemed to burn through him. He nodded at the scar deforming Zannanza’s beautiful cheek.

  ‘Greetings, pretty Prince. Your brother, the Crown Prince, sends his greetings,’ he said sarcastically.

  ‘My brother?’ stammered Zannanza, confused.

  ‘Of course. He and I are close associates. Do you not know the depth of his contempt for you?’ said Aziru, enjoying the cruel import of his words.

  ‘My brother–betrayed me?’ said the Prince, slowly.

  ‘Well, yes. He has sentenced you to death, for fraternizing with the enemy. I am here to execute his command. And I must say, it will be a curious pleasure.’

  He ran the point of his sword slowly down the Prince’s cheek, and across the wounds made by Inanna’s knife. The Prince flinched.

  ‘I see my friend has already had some pleasure with you. I’m sure that’s the first time you have given pleasure to any woman.’

  ‘You disgust me,’ said the Prince.

  ‘The feeling is mutual,’ replied Aziru. And then he turned to Simut, and placing his boot on my friend’s head, ground his face painfully into the dirt, in the traditional gesture of kings to their defeated enemies.

  ‘And this is the big man, the man of honour, the Commander of the Palace Guard.’ He pressed his foot down harder on Simut’s head.

  ‘Not so big now…’ he said, his face twisting.

  Simut was silent. Then Aziru turned to Nakht.

  ‘And here at last is the Royal Envoy himself. The great and noble Nakht. We meet again,’ he said. ‘Although in such altered and, for you, unexpected circumstances.’

  And then, without warning, he kicked Nakht with all his might in the stomach. Nakht doubled over and collapsed on the ground, gasping for breath. Aziru stood over him.

  ‘You thought you could manipulate me. But I am Aziru, King of Amurru. And I want revenge for my father, and for myself.’

  And then he kicked Nakht hard in the face. The royal envoy went flying back, his head twisted to one side.

  ‘You thought you could use me. You thought I would do the bidding of Egypt. How foolish you were. How easily I convinced you. And then, when all was lost, you thought you could trap me, and have me killed. You thought you could negotiate my assassination with the Hittites. But you underestimated me. It is you who is caught. Now it is you who will die.’

  With every sentence he administered another vicious kick to Nakht’s body. Then he stepped back to admire his captives again.

  ‘Is this not a pitiful sight? The effeminate little Hittite Prince, runt of the litter, bartered to the lonely soon-to-be-widowed Queen of Egypt. Imagine the dynasty of such a creature! A dynasty of females and eunuchs…’ He kicked Zannanza hard in the groin, and the Prince gasped and gagged with the pain.

  ‘All in all, it was a very witty move on the part of your brother, I must say, to persuade your father to send so useless a specimen in answer to his enemy’s prayers.’

  Then Aziru turned to Inanna, as if he had just thought of something.

  ‘Four men were taken, and you have only offered me three,’ he said.

  ‘One died from his wounds,’ she replied, quickly.

  They stared at each other.

  ‘I paid for four men, alive.’

  ‘My men were over-zealous. Pay me for two men, then. I will give you the third for free!’ said Inanna, lightly.

  ‘Show me the bones of the missing man.’

  ‘We left
him in the desert,’ replied Inanna.

  There was a moment of tense silence; then Aziru said clearly: ‘You are lying.’

  ‘I am not,’ she replied. And then, to my astonishment, she kissed him passionately, like a lover. Aziru responded, embracing her possessively, but then winding her wild hair in his fists, and dragging her head back, painfully. Her men bristled.

  ‘The truth has never passed your foul lips,’ he said, a nasty grin on his face.

  Inanna shook herself free. He nodded to his men, who dragged Nakht apart from the other two men. Simut attempted to defend him, but he was kicked and punched to the ground. Then they dragged Nakht away by the feet, his head bouncing against the hard ground, until they disappeared into the main building of the compound.

  ‘Keep them here in the sun, and give them no food or water. I will deal with them later,’ ordered Aziru, nodding at Simut and Prince Zannanza. He disappeared into the building, his arm possessively around Inanna.

  I ran around to the back of the compound buildings. Women and children were cowering there, terrified; they huddled away from me. I found a doorway and slipped into the rear of the building. A golden statue stared at me, its yellow eyes unblinking, accusatory.

  I could hear distant voices. I slipped along the shadows of the passageway, away from the unreal light of the day. The voices were closer now.

  ‘You are a traitor.’

  ‘You trained me well. You thought you could send me back to the Hittites, as your trusty spy. And I made you believe I was loyal. All those reports I sent to you? I made them up. They were all lies.’

  ‘I always knew your reports were lies. Do you think you were the only contact I maintained in Hattusa? Did you think I was ever fool enough to trust you?’ It was Nakht’s voice.

  Then I heard the sound of a deep punch, and a sudden series of gasps. I glanced around the corner and saw Aziru squatting down over Nakht while Inanna watched. He grabbed him by the hair, yanking his face towards him.

  ‘You offered me my freedom in exchange for betraying my own people. My father died at the hands of Akhenaten, and yet still you believed I could be controlled by Egypt. But I am my father’s son. Amurru will be great again. Chaos will rule. Know this: all your plans have come to nothing. Egypt and the Hittites will always be at war until the stones of Egypt’s temples are fallen. I will take pleasure in cutting off the pretty head of the Hittite Prince and sending it in a box, with my compliments, to your hopeless Queen, so that she will know her last chance has gone. She carries the future of Egypt in her empty womb; and that future is a desert.’

  Nakht looked at him.

  ‘You fool,’ he said, with a new, dark contempt in his voice. He sounded unlike himself. ‘You have understood nothing. You will never know the truth.’

  ‘Oh noble Nakht, orator and master, your skills are of no use to you now. Words will not save you. I am going to make you confess all your secrets, so-called envoy of the royal court, spider at the heart of the web of secrets. And you will tell me them all, as I cut off your fingers, and then your hands, one by one.’

  But Nakht’s response to this was simply to close his eyes. Aziru was incensed.

  ‘Don’t you dare close your eyes,’ he screamed, brandishing his polished scimitar. ‘I am Aziru. I am a King! Look upon me. And know this: there is a force of darkness awake in this world. There is a great man whose shadow will fall upon this world, and none shall escape his vengeance.’

  Aziru’s face bore the mad grin of an enchanted fanatic, as he raised the blade high into the air, and held it there, the more to torture Nakht with fear and anticipation; but Nakht’s eyes still remained closed. From where did my old friend find such strength to face his own death? He looked like a man at prayer, invoking from deep within himself the support of his God. Suddenly I felt anger rising up inside me like a storm. Aziru, too, was now beside himself, shouting: ‘He will destroy all that has been. He will bring his darkness to the world. Do you know his name? You, envoy, keeper of the secrets, Scribe of all Truths? You do not know his name. Names are powers, and I invoke his name…’

  Neither he nor Inanna saw me as I ran at him, tackling him from behind, and throwing him to the ground. His scimitar clattered away across the floor. I gripped his head in my hands and beat it with all my strength against the floor. He struggled like a demon, but rage gave me strength, and, though he turned to face me, I held his writhing body down like a snake’s. My knees on his arms, I smashed his skull against the ground, over and over; his expression went from astonishment to rage, and as the back of his skull cracked open and caved in, to agony, and finally emptiness.

  ‘You can stop now. He is dead,’ said Nakht quietly.

  Blood spread silently all around Aziru’s shattered skull. I looked up. Inanna had disappeared. Nakht was standing very still, with Aziru’s scimitar in his hand, a strange look on his face.

  ‘Your loyalty is commendable,’ he said.

  ‘Come, let us find Prince Zannanza and Simut,’ I said. ‘Now is our chance to escape.’

  But then, out of the blue, the remarkable, long, splendid note of a single Egyptian war trumpet reverberated through the air; and in the silence that followed, the sound of a thousand furious, hissing serpents rising up from the valley floor; and then we heard cries and shouts of confusion from inside the compound walls.

  I ran to the entrance in time to see a second glittering volley of arrows rain down into the compound, thudding into the bodies of more of Inanna’s men who fell like slain animals. The attackers had set fire to the compound gates.

  ‘Who is it?’ I shouted.

  ‘Horemheb,’ replied Nakht. There was a new light shining in his eyes.

  If that was true, then everything was lost.

  Without warning, units of Egyptian archers armed with magnificent bows and elite soldiers with shields, spears and curved swords leapt through the flames that had already consumed the wooden gates; the archers quickly and accurately picked off Inanna’s men as they scrambled in wild confusion towards the compound buildings. More units of soldiers followed, fanning out with perfect discipline, killing everything that moved with merciless, scrupulous precision.

  ‘Give me the scimitar!’ I shouted. ‘I’ll hold them off for as long as I can.’

  Nakht hesitated.

  ‘I can’t let you do that,’ he said.

  ‘You have to. Get back to Thebes. Warn the Queen. Look after my family. Tell them I love them.’

  We stared eye to eye. For a strange moment I felt I was looking at the face of a complete stranger; something in his expression and in the poise of his body had changed, and I did not know him. He glanced along the blade of the scimitar, admiring it in the light, and fleetingly I imagined he might even strike me dead. Smoke was everywhere, and behind Nakht, along the corridor, I could see the red glow of fire. Suddenly he smiled.

  ‘It is only by dying that we find everlasting life,’ he said, mysteriously.

  ‘This is no time for philosophy. Go now!’ I shouted.

  He grinned, and then, brandishing the weapon, he turned and ran into the billowing smoke.

  Suddenly the chamber was full of Egyptian soldiers. They surrounded me, their swords at my throat; but I shouted: ‘I am Egyptian! My name is Rahotep. This is the body of Aziru of Amurru. I killed him!’

  ‘Don’t move!’ shouted one of them. ‘Face down on the ground. Now!’

  I complied. Then, from a side chamber, I heard Inanna shouting, as the soldiers dragged her out by her feet. She stared wildly at me and Aziru’s corpse.

  Another trumpet blast sounded the call of victory from inside the compound. I heard the clatter of more soldiers running in, hurriedly assuming a formal position; and then, when all was absolutely silent, someone entered the chamber.

  ‘You have deprived us of the pleasure of capturing and interrogating this great enemy of Egypt,’ said Horemheb, General of the Armies of the Two Lands. I was about to reply, but he pressed his foot down on m
y face. ‘Be silent. Say not a word. I know exactly who you are, Rahotep. Your own interrogation will come soon enough.’

  And then he turned to Inanna.

  ‘Bring this revolting creature outside,’ he said. ‘And put that man in chains.’

  34

  My hands and feet were bound like a captive of war, and I was dragged out into the courtyard, and thrown down next to Prince Zannanza and Simut, who were both bound and gagged. Simut stared at me in amazement and something like contempt, and then turned his face away.

  The compound buildings were on fire. Gusts of bitter smoke drifted into my eyes. Beyond the walls, in the great opium fields, fires raged hugely, turning the great sky dark red and black. The sun was a pale disc, trapped among the thick, billowing clouds of smoke. Everywhere, I heard screams and cries. I knew then that Nakht could not have escaped alive.

  The Egyptian troops moved confidently and swiftly around the destroyed ground of the compound. I watched them pick up crying children, and the women who held them close, and hurl them by the arms or legs into the burning pyres, where they fell screaming amid little explosions of bright sparks, and rushes of crackling flame. It seemed to me the God Seth had truly returned to the world, destroying everything in his rage.

  Horemheb strode among the horror, issuing orders, and calmly assessing the progress of the massacre. He turned to a line of Inanna’s men, and one by one smote each of them like a king, caving in the backs of their skulls. Their bodies were cast on to the pyres as well. Inanna watched the execution of her army and the destruction of her kingdom with her head held high. On her face I saw a noble melancholy that touched me. And when it was all done, Horemheb ordered his men to hold her up by the hair. Her face was lit by the light of the fires. She looked around her world, knowing this was the end of her life. Finally, her gaze rested on me, and she gave me a look I will never forget, of pity and of loss. And then Horemheb slashed his sword across her throat; blood flowed down her bare breasts, and slowly she slumped forward. Then, in a final act of remorseless triumph, before she was dead, an officer hacked her head from her neck, impaled it on a pole, and stuck the pole in the ground. The soldiers cheered obediently.