Egypt Read online

  Suddenly the stench of death, and my terrible desire for the opium, were too much to endure. I buckled over, gagging, trying to hold my bowels together, desperate to make no noise. But the guards must have heard something. They appeared together at the entrance, holding up their lamp, listening intently.

  ‘You’re imagining things,’ I heard one of them whisper.

  ‘No. I heard something,’ said the other.

  ‘Maybe they’re not all dead. Maybe they’re coming back to life…’

  He made a noise like a spirit and suddenly gripped his friend around the neck. His companion laughed, shook him off, and stepped further inside the darkness.

  ‘We’d better take a look.’

  ‘Not a chance! This place scares the life out of me. There’s nothing going on here. Come away…’ said the other.

  The suspicious one, holding the lamp, peered one last time into the dark, then shook his head, muttering: ‘The sooner we get this consignment back to Memphis, the happier I’ll be. I’ve had enough. I want out. I want to go home.’

  ‘Once you’ve joined up, the only way out is in a coffin, isn’t that what they say?’ his friend replied.

  ‘Obsidian has us all in his grasp,’ said the one holding the lamp. ‘Whoever he is…’

  ‘They say he’s not a man at all, but Seth returned to the world. They say he kills all who oppose or disobey him by cutting them to pieces while they are still alive. He has a blade, a black scimitar, which is so fine, so sharp, that it can slice open the air itself. They say it can even cut through time, and that is how he enters our world again, wherever and whenever he wills… He hears everything, he knows your thoughts, and he could even be here, now, right behind us…’

  ‘Stop it! All I know is this: he demands loyalty, and those who fail him disappear, never to be heard of again,’ said the other.

  The men were briefly silent.

  ‘Come. We’re scaring ourselves. Let’s do our job, and we’ll have nothing to worry about,’ said the suspicious one.

  I froze in the shadows, hearing the name of Obsidian again, as if he had been conjured right before me. I knew he was not a god returned to this world. He was a man, and the murderer of Khety, and I would return to Thebes and destroy him, if it cost me my life.

  I replaced three of the bricks and rewrapped the corpse, then slipped out of the magazine, made my way back along the dark passages of the citadel and, with the mad energy in my legs, clambered up the broken stones of the wall. An almost full moon had risen; the night was full of stars, and from my vantage point I could see across the dark burial ground to the camp bonfires and torches beyond, and further away in the distance the dark shapes of ships moored at the harbour, awaiting their secret cargoes. In my shaking hands I held one precious brick of opium. I knew I could never complete my mission if I tried to survive without it. I told myself I had no choice.

  36

  The following morning, the soldiers returned to the citadel, loaded up the coffins on the train of carts, and accompanied them back to a military vessel newly docked in the harbour. I watched as they carried each coffin up the gangplank and inside, with a performance of military honours. No port or military overseer examined the coffins or questioned the officers. I knew their destination: Memphis. I had to arrive first.

  I took a space on the first passenger ship I could find; it was already crowded with traders, merchants and their goods, and as soon as I stepped aboard, and the Official of the River had checked our authorizations, we set off into the Great River, the big sail over our head, among its taut web of ropes, gathering the afternoon breeze into itself, and carrying us south, against the strong current.

  As I sat listening to my fellow passengers on the deck, all were alive with rumour and speculation: Ay was dead, Ankhesenamun was isolated and hopeless, the End of Days was nigh, said some; others, that Ay was still alive. No one spoke Horemheb’s name aloud, although he was surely on everyone’s minds.

  I found a space apart; I wanted to be alone, to think, and to take more of the opium without being seen. I constantly felt the small bundle inside my bag to make sure it was still there. But an elderly pot-bellied merchant, whose business was in the trade of wood for shipbuilding, spotted me, introduced himself, and immediately started talking.

  ‘The latest reports from Thebes are bad, very bad,’ he said, with the strange pleasure men take in the discussion of impending disaster.

  I said all I had heard was rumour. I had been away from the Two Lands for several months.

  ‘Well, you might have done better to stay away. They say King Ay has died, but the palace is not revealing the truth for fear of what the uncertainty of the succession may provoke in the people. But in my opinion, by not saying anything they surely provoke even greater uncertainty!’

  ‘But whether or not that is true, Queen Ankhesenamun still holds power,’ I offered.

  ‘How can she hold power, man? She’s just a girl! I mean, yes–I wish it could be so, for her sake. And it’s unfortunate the dynasty has come to a sad ending. It began with the great glory of Amenhotep the Magnificent–who I recall vividly, for I was a boy when he ruled–and all the great monuments of his reign. The processional colonnade, the great pylon at Karnak, and of course the royal palace of Malkata, which they say is a great miracle of a place, all were his works. But since then? We’ve had the disastrous days of his son, whose name I shall never be persuaded to utter, with all that nonsense about a new religion, and the madness of the priests turned out of their temples. Everything was thrown up in the air, and nothing came down right.’

  He leaned closer towards me, his index finger raised like a teacher.

  ‘And then it got even worse with his son–Tutankhamun. You can’t tell me that wasn’t a sign from the Gods. I mean, I’m sorry he died young, and the tragedy was very great, of course; but I don’t think he’d ever have made a strong king. He was weak as water. Can you imagine him smiting the enemy? Destroying them in battle? Having the guts to execute the opposition?’

  ‘Perhaps it’s time we had a king who didn’t do that. Perhaps it’s time we had a king who had other values on his mind,’ I said, playing nervously with my dagger to calm the growing anxiety inside me.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Reform of corruption. Civil order to prevent the abuses of power. Justice.’

  The old man waved his hands dismissively in the air.

  ‘What world are you living in? This is Egypt. Justice is for children. At the end of the day, gold talks,’ he said, rubbing his fingers together. ‘We need a strong king now, not a pretty girl. Don’t get me wrong, I pity the Queen, I do–imagine sharing a throne and a couch with Ay, who’s even older than I am! That can’t have been a pleasure, can it? Although I do know women respect a powerful older man…’

  And he prodded the grumpy woman sitting next to him, who pitched in: ‘Do they? Well, I’m this one’s wife, and I can tell you it’s no pleasure sharing a throne and a couch with him,’ she said. ‘When he’s not talking, he’s snoring and keeping me wide awake. That’s the long and the short of his powers.’

  The old man shook his head.

  ‘Well, mark my words. We’re going to have to celebrate the festival of a new king very soon. The general’s a man of the world. He knows one end of a sword from the other. He’s fought wars. He’s beaten the enemy. He’ll bring back order,’ he said.

  ‘I pity the Queen,’ said the wife, sadly. ‘She’s only a young woman alone in a world of bad men. I hate to think what they’ll do to her now. I wouldn’t be her for all the gold in Nubia.’

  Once I had taken more of the opium and its golden bliss had calmed me, I sat looking out at the passing fields, where it seemed the terrible history of kings and generals never mattered, for the crops were ever the same, and the men and women toiling there unchanging in their endless labours. As I listened, the children along the water’s edge seemed to be calling into the golden dusk of a different world. I glanced
back up the river, looking north. At this moment only fishing boats and a few cargo ships occupied its shining, languid waters. But in the next few days, Horemheb’s ships, loaded with thousands of soldiers in their divisions, would be sailing into Memphis, in preparation for the taking of Thebes. I thought of Ankhesenamun alone in her palace, and I wondered what I, an opium addict, and a disgraced man, could do to save her from the general’s revenge.

  37

  Hundreds of ships were crowded along the wharves of the great harbour of Memphis; regiments of soldiers marched down the gangplanks of transport boats and gathered in long lines on the quays awaiting their next orders. Horses and chariots were driven from their stalls, and the rich booty from the wars was unloaded by dockers and then swiftly transported away to the army depots by stevedores. Vast cargoes of grain were being measured by the weighers and their overseers, while scribes noted the transactions.

  I went to the northernmost point of the docks, and settled down to wait, with a fresh roll to eat and a jug of beer. The jitters in my legs, and the crawling of invisible spiders through my hair and across my skin had faded as more opium calmed me. Around mid-afternoon, I spotted the military ship carrying the coffins among the busy river traffic. She negotiated a space on an outlying wharf, and docked. I watched as the gangplanks were lowered and a small military escort swiftly drew up with carts. Once more, there was a performance of military honours. The Official of the Dock and his scribe merely bowed their heads, and signed a papyrus of authorization; then the coffins were unloaded and driven away on the carts.

  As they passed swiftly through the dock gates I saw one of the officers dismissing the port guards, who bowed and let them pass without checking their authorizations, and they set off along the paved stone ways of the city. I hailed a passing cart, loaded with vegetables, and bribed the driver, a surprised young lad, to follow them.

  ‘Where to, master?’ he asked enthusiastically.

  ‘No questions. Just follow those carts,’ I said.

  He grinned. ‘Yes, boss!’

  We followed them into the centre of Memphis, towards the district of the Temple of Ptah, whose pylons, enclosure walls and huge statues towered above the rooftops of the city’s buildings. But they did not pass across the open, western forecourt, choosing instead a series of side streets containing small businesses, and leading away from the city centre. They continued onwards until, just beyond the edge of the great city, they finally paused outside a well-kept workshop behind high enclosure walls; the gates were swiftly opened, and they disappeared inside.

  ‘Go on, tell me what this is all about,’ said the boy.

  ‘Sorry. I can’t,’ I said. ‘But know this; you’ve served the empire well today.’

  His face lit up. I paid him off, and he drove away. The area I found myself in was inconspicuously ordinary; other workshops were scattered around, dirt tracks led in different directions, the shadows were occupied by sleeping dogs and unemployed men, and the dusty, derelict grounds between the buildings shimmered with heat.

  I walked up to the entrance of the embalmers’ establishment, and saw the hieroglyph of Anubis, the Jackal, the One in the Place of Embalming, carved over the lintel. From inside I heard the sound of women weeping. I could smell death over the high wall. I knocked on the door.

  Groups of mourners were gathered in the long, low public room. Some were waiting for the delivery of their relatives, ready for burial after the long rituals of mummification, while others, newly bereaved, keening and weeping, had come to negotiate with the embalmer. Two young men, neatly dressed, moved among them, taking orders, noting details, discussing the choice of coffins, and applying their consolations and commiserations with practised finesse. One nodded respectfully to me, indicating he would attend me as soon as possible.

  Along one wall were displayed various coffins with different prices: cheap, simple boxes of roughly cut timber painted over with white plaster; and more costly ones in the form of a person, thinly gilded all over, with bands of painted inscriptions, and the wings of the Goddess Nut spread protectively over the lid. And then there were offerings of other necessary paraphernalia: canopic jars and chests of various qualities; gold-leaf eyes and tongues; gold finger-caps; masks; much funeral jewellery; heart scarabs and necklaces of scarabs; protective wedjat eyes; amulets of Isis suckling the baby Horus, of Anubis, the Jackal, and of Bes, the little ugly spirit who scares away demons; and tiny glazed hands, legs, feet, and hearts.

  The two men–who looked like brothers–were preoccupied with their customers, and when both were turned away, I slipped through the doorway at the back. In contrast to the neat order of the public room, here everything was a mess of planks of wood and piles of supplies and materials. Ahead stretched a shadowy passage; I made my way carefully past a small, empty office where papyrus scrolls were scattered in great disorder. Next came the carpenters’ workshop; the sweet scent of wood shavings briefly masked the stench of dead bodies. I saw coffins in different stages of completion. An old man was focused upon his work, hammering and carving.

  I continued down the passage, until it opened out into an open yard. On the far side, two bandagers were chatting casually as they quickly bound the feet of a desiccated corpse that had come to the end of the embalming process. Other withered, blackened bodies were waiting for their attention, stacked together on a cart. One worker sneezed, taking no care to protect the corpse, and the other laughed, and I took the chance to move past them, beyond more storage buildings, and peer into another courtyard. Here the stench intensified, for this was where the embalmers’ first work was undertaken. Perhaps ten corpses lay in the shade, on sloping slabs, their sides slit open, their internal organs not yet removed. Others, already eviscerated, were hidden under mounds of natron salt. And several new arrivals simply lay, undignified, naked and dead, in the open air, awaiting attention. There was a large guard dog chained in the corner, his head on his paws, watching and waiting.

  I could smell resin being warmed; and then a man appeared, carrying a wide pot of resin with a brush in it, along with a flint knife and a sharp, pointed instrument. The guard dog immediately sat up. Seemingly oblivious to the appalling stink, the man set the pot down, laid the knife alongside the naked corpse of a fat, middle-aged man, and then, as if this were the most normal thing in the world, he inserted the point of the tool up the man’s nose and jabbed hard. I heard the sound of bone cracking. Whistling, he took out the tool, inserted a long, thin spoon, and began to scoop out brain matter, scraping around carelessly inside the dead man’s skull; and this he flung casually at the attentive dog, who eagerly gobbled up the offering. This work completed, he sliced along the side of the corpse, and the yellow fatty flesh opened up quickly. He rummaged around inside the body with his knife, tugging and cutting and drawing out organs, which he threw equally casually into a pot at the foot of the table. Then he set about painting the face of the man with the warm resin.

  While the guard dog was preoccupied with his snack of brains, I quickly moved across the courtyard towards another opening on the far side. I hurried down the darkness of a passage, but quickly backed into a doorway, for just ahead of me, soldiers were unloading the coffins from a backyard area into a storage room. I listened to their feet coming and going, and their grunts as they worked, carrying and setting down the heavy burdens. And I heard two men’s voices, speaking in a low tone to each other. I couldn’t make out what they were saying. There was clearly a problem. And then their voices faded as they walked back into the yard. I inched my way along the wall, and peered into the storage room; inside, the coffins marked with the sign of Seth were laid out on the ground, with their lids removed. The twenty dead soldiers gazed up sightlessly at the ceiling. And along one wall, as I knew, seventy-nine packages of opium were stacked. One was missing, because it was in my satchel. No doubt they had now discovered that.

  I made my way back as quickly as I could; but the guard dog spotted me and barked furiously. The embalme
r looked up. I offered a confident greeting, and continued back towards the shop. Suddenly, footsteps hurried towards me, and the two brothers appeared, alarmed. The embalmer approached, too, knife in hand. I raised my hands.

  ‘I was looking for somewhere to piss. I got lost. If you’re free, can we discuss arrangements for my brother now?’

  Attended by the man with the knife, the brothers surrounded me, questioning me loudly. I continued to protest my innocence, and to talk about my dead brother. Then a large man appeared, quickly coming up the passageway; obviously the father of the brothers. He had a face made for dealing with the dead–cold, pious and hard.

  ‘What’s going on?’ His was the voice of one of the two men in the backyard.

  ‘He says he’s here for his brother’s body,’ said one brother.

  ‘He says he needed a piss,’ said the other.

  ‘This is a private area. Why didn’t you ask, like any other customer?’ asked the father.

  ‘These gentlemen were busy with other customers–I see how very busy you are–by the Gods, death has much to answer for in these days, doesn’t it?’