The Season of the Hyaena (Ancient Egyptian Mysteries) (30 page)

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Authors: Paul Doherty

BOOK: The Season of the Hyaena (Ancient Egyptian Mysteries)
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‘And?’ I asked.
‘Anyway, after the victory parade, Nebamun continued the hunt. He and his squadron stopped to rest the horses and take on some water. A group of pilgrims passed by, travelling north, on their way to Bubastis. They were carrying a sacred statue of a cat. You know how these pilgrims are dedicated to their own cult: singing hymns and chanting songs. They stopped by the well to draw water. They were excited by what they had seen in Memphis and were discussing it amongst themselves. Nebamun drifted over to inspect the statue of the Goddess Bastet, which was accompanied by two priests, one short, the other very tall. Each had a mask of a cat concealing his face. Nebamun ignored them and the procession moved on.’
‘So, he didn’t see their faces?’
‘Ah, but he did. One of the pilgrims offered the priests water. They removed their masks to drink. Nebamun glimpsed a face, a strange chest and wide hips, but thought nothing of it. Only when the pilgrims had passed did he reflect on what he had seen, and the more he remembered, the more certain he became that the man he had glimpsed was Akenhaten, former Pharaoh of Egypt.’
‘Did he set off in pursuit?’
‘Of course he did. But you see, he had left the road, stopping at the village to conduct his own search, and when he caught up with the pilgrims he found the priest in question had disappeared. He was informed that the priest had forgotten something precious and returned to Memphis. Nebamun was convinced that this priest, our former Pharaoh, suspected he had been recognised and decided to slip away.’
‘So the city has been searched?’ I declared.
‘Whatever we can do without raising too much of a fuss.’ Nakhtimin got to his feet. ‘Lord Ay asked me to search you out and give you the news.’ He waved away the sweaty beer stall owner holding a cup of date wine and tossed him a deben of copper. ‘I don’t want it now. Give it to my friend.’
Nakhtimin bowed and strode away, leaving me to my wine.
I stared across at the bustling square and smiled to myself. I have had years to reflect about Akenhaten. How he began worshipping the Aten, the one omnipotent, invisible God, because of secret teaching by his mother, the Great Queen Tiye, whose ancestors had wandered down from Canaan, driving their flocks before them to feast on the riches of Egypt. Others argued how the worship of the Aten was already in place during the reign of his father, that it was a political move to counter the growing power of the Temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak and that of Luxor in Thebes. Still others maintained it was a mixture of the two, but the older I grew and the more I listened, the more clearly I saw a young man obsessed with an idea, rejected and insulted by his father, who, if he had had his way, would have had him murdered at birth. I thought of the humiliation Akenhaten had suffered at the hands of the priests of Amun-Ra. How he’d been banished from the Mansions of a Million Years and not allowed to mix with the others in the Great House. Was Akenhaten’s devotion to the Aten simply revenge? A reason to stir the pool just to see the dirt rise? On that evening in Memphis I wondered. Akenhaten’s shadow still hung over everything; his personality and his policies still dominated the land of Egypt. Was that what he wanted? For people to recognise that once he had walked this earth, that he was not to be ignored?
‘Great of mischief,’ one priest had described him. ‘Great of mischief and great of lies.’ I have no son, but if I had, I would teach him the one true lesson I have learned in life: what we are as children, so shall we be as adults; how we are treated as children, so shall we treat others as adults. Oh, we don our wigs and put the chains of office around our necks. We garb ourselves in gauffered robes with gold, silver and precious jewels so we shimmer like dazzling images. Yet in the end, the heart cannot be adorned. It doesn’t change, it simply reflects everything it has learnt.
On that evening, sitting under a dusty palm tree sipping cheap date wine, I recognised that what was true of Akenhaten was also true of me; that was the bond between the two of us. In my early days, as a Child of the Kap, I had been ridiculed and taunted by the Pharaoh’s Chief Minister, the great Hotep, that I was not truly my father’s son. Perhaps this explains why Father hardly bothered with me but left me to the sinister care of Aunt Isithia, a woman with a heart steeped in darkness. A woman who, if reports were true, drove my own mother to her grave and liked nothing better than to bait me, a child, with all forms of subtle cruelty. As a man, I paid her back coin for coin. I told Sobeck she was responsible for the betrayal of him and the Royal Concubine whom he’d secretly seduced. Isithia suffered an accident, stumbling off the roof of her house. I ordered flies to be buried with her, something in life that she could not stand. I also told her embalmers to burn her heart so she’d wander for ever the Halls of the Underworld.
I reflected on how Ay had tried to drive me from the Royal Circle and I knew why I had resisted. First, my loyalty to the Prince, the living clasp between myself and what had gone before. Secondly – yes, there was another reason, one I’ve told my own interrogators, so simple, so lucid, almost childlike. True, I had nowhere to go and nothing else to do, but that was not all. The true reason was that I was curious. I was like a man who wanders into a marketplace and watches the most dramatic quarrel take place. Insults fly, secrets are revealed, grudges surface, and although it has nothing to do with you, you are still caught up in the drama; you want to stay and see what happens.
I finished my palm wine and, clutching my cudgel, walked out of the city through the great gateway dominated by carved figures of Ptah, arms crossed, his unseeing eyes staring out over the Black Lands. Many of the peasants were leaving now the markets were closed. They were sleepy after their wine and beer, hearts full of wonderment at the doings of the Great Ones of the land. I listened to their chatter, the rumours that Akenhaten had returned. The Great Heretic would not leave them alone! They talked of him as if he were some evil spirit out of the west, a sombre ghost. I smiled to myself. The legends and stories were already being born, the truth slowly being twisted.
I approached Nebamun’s country mansion, that elegant house perched on the banks of the Nile yet shielded from it by long grass, bushes and clumps of trees. Now it lay all serene, but I recalled the frenzied attack by the usurper’s mercenaries, how close they had come to victory. Nebamun certainly had not forgotten it. Members of his regiment camped amongst the trees, as did my mercenaries round their camp fires, still celebrating the day’s events. Their captain rose to greet me, aggrieved that I had wandered into the city alone, remonstrating that it wasn’t safe. I agreed with him. He pointed to the two great pillars leading into the courtyard. At the base of each Nebamun had placed a skull, a grisly reminder of what had happened. I told the man to keep close watch and wandered into the courtyard, where more of my men sprawled in the shade. The captain came running after me, saying how members of Ay’s retinue had brought the Prince back. I found him and Djarka in their old quarters. Colonel Nebamun was still absent at the victory banquet and his chamberlain fussed about me till I snapped at him to leave me alone. Tutankhamun came to greet me, dancing from foot to foot, little arms held high. Djarka still looked downcast and apologetic. I told him that the matter was finished.
‘You could not have opposed the Lord Ay,’ I reassured him. ‘Perhaps I should not have left you, but there again, I had no choice. Now come, something to eat and drink?’
Djarka went down to the kitchens and brought back food and wine, with apple juice for the Prince. I sat and listened to Tutankhamun’s chatter, his constant stream of questions. How many had I killed in the Great Battle? Was I a Great Warrior? Could I show him how the battle went?
I arranged his toy soldiers and chariots and gave him the most vivid description, whilst he sat round-eyed, sipping at the juice and nibbling at sesame cake. I took Djarka aside and asked him if there had been recurrences of that trance-like state when the Prince seemed not to recognise anything or anyone. Djarka shook his head. I asked him to bring up the box of
shets
, the small tortoises which fascinated both me and Tutankhamun, I had brought these from Thebes. The boy loved them. I had painted their shells different colours. We shared a secret. Each tortoise was named after a member of the Royal Circle: Horemheb, Rameses, Meryre, Tutu, Huy and Maya. The last was the fattest. Tutankhamun thought this was amusing, and often giggled behind his fingers. I watched the little things crawl over the floor.
‘My lord?’
‘Yes, Uncle Mahu?’
‘Where are Meryre and Tutu? You have two missing.’
‘I drowned them.’ Tutankhamun stood, hands hanging by his sides. He must have caught my look, for his lower lip came out and began to quiver. ‘They were traitors,’ he declared. ‘They were no longer members of the Royal Circle, so I drowned them in a pool and buried them in the garden.’
I glanced sharply at Djarka, who just shook his head.
‘Did I do wrong, Uncle Mahu?’
I was going to say yes, when I thought of all the men I had killed in battle or executed silently and swiftly in the darkness of the night. I stretched out my arms. He ran towards me.
‘They were only tortoises,’ I whispered.
‘They were traitors,’ he declared fiercely. ‘They would have killed you, Uncle Mahu.’
Whilst the tortoises crawled about, I arranged the board and pieces for a game of Senet and played until the Prince’s eyes grew heavy. Djarka scooped him up and took him to bed, and I went along to the other side of the house. Nebamun’s chamberlain assured me that Khufu’s room was closely guarded. The prisoner hadn’t been troubled, but had been given food and drink, which the chamberlain had tasted first. I opened the door and peered in. Khufu lay on his bed, snoring like a pig.
Nebamun returned slightly drunk, a floral collar about his neck, a lotus behind his ear, whilst the cone of perfume bestowed on every banquet guest had melted so he reeked like a temple girl. He was assisted by two of his staff officers, who helped him into the hall where, perched drunkenly on a stool, he bawled for a jug of light beer. He opened the small casket he was holding.
‘Look, Mahu.’ The old soldier swayed dangerously. ‘Look what they have given me.’
It was a gold-bejewelled collar of bravery, which proclaimed Nebamun as ‘Great of Valour’. He put this back into the casket and demanded that I join him in a drink. Once again he recounted his version of the battle, the glories of Horemheb’s victory, and my, as he put it, major part in it. Nebamun was a true soldier, a veritable treasure house of funny stories which mocked both himself and his superiors. He chattered about the banquet too: I gathered the rest were still feasting.
‘But,’ Nebamun tapped the side of his nose, ‘they are not as drunk as they pretend. They want you to join them tomorrow, just before dawn, for a hunting party. Now why should they want to go hunting?’
‘Because that’s what we always do, that’s what we have always done, the Children of the Kap, the Royal Circle: we go out in the desert where there are no ears, no eyes, no scribes.’
‘I thought as much,’ Nebamun drunkenly agreed. ‘They want to discuss the
saati
, the usurper.’
‘They say you saw the True Pharaoh?’
‘I didn’t call him the True Pharaoh.’ Nebamun sobered up. ‘He was not
my
True Pharaoh. I glimpsed Akenhaten and I spoke with true voice.’ He waved his finger at me and recounted the same story Nakhtimin had told me.
‘But are you sure?’
‘A mere chance,’ he slurred. ‘You know how it is, Mahu. You see something, at first you don’t recognise or don’t realise what’s happening. It was only afterwards.’ He shook his head. ‘I hadn’t been drinking. I know what I saw. Tall he was, angular, chest sticking out, his belly like a pouch, the wide hips, but above all those spindly fingers, those eyes, the line of his face, the long jaw. He was fingering a circle of turquoise beads. I once stood near him in Thebes.’ He smiled. ‘Or rather I nosed the ground before him. I took my opportunity to study the man who was busy turning everything on its head. I remember faces. I would remember his. I wish I had captured him, but …’ He shrugged.
‘You could have been mistaken?’
Nebamun smiled. ‘No, no, my lord. Ay has already been busy searching for the truth. The usurper and his accomplices, including some of the mercenary captains, have been taken to the Kheb-t and put to the torture.’
‘My lord Ay is impatient.’
‘He brought his own torturer with him,’ Nebamun replied. ‘The Usernu.’
I recognised the title for the Chief Torturer from the Temple of Osiris. He was one of Ay’s minions, who governed the hideous dungeons and chambers beneath the House of Secrets.
‘I thought you’d know,’ Nebamun drawled. ‘Isn’t the House of Secrets in your care?’
‘It’s supposed to be,’ I agreed. ‘A minor bone of contention between myself and Lord Ay, but we have reached a pact. I don’t interfere with him and he certainly doesn’t interfere with me. So, what have these torturers learnt?’
Nebamun held up a forefinger and thumb, as if measuring something small. ‘Tiny nuggets,’ he murmured. ‘But one thing is certain. According to everything Ay has learnt – and he’s already telling this to the Royal Circle, making no secret of it – Akenhaten has been seen in Canaan. They believe he is still there. Now, what do you think of that?’

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