blasted out a fanfare. Suddenly the attitude of the crowd shifted, from chaotic discontent to attention. The spectacle they had demanded was about to begin.
The Queen appeared from the gateway, arrayed in the gold robes of state and the crowns, and the silence gave way again to screaming and shouting when it became clear she was alone. But in the long, low angles of the late light, she glowed. She continued forward, ascended the dais, ignoring the cries and laments, and then stood to confront the great beast of the multitude. She waited to be heard. It would be a battle of wills. Finally silence fell. I saw thousands of faces, rapt, anxious, devoted to her glorious presence.
‘This has been a day of wondrous omens,’ she called out. ‘The Gods have revealed themselves to us. So let us worship them.’
She raised her arms, serenely; and then, slowly, many in the crowd followed suit. Those that did not were at least silenced.
‘Ra, the King of the Gods, has triumphed over the forces of darkness and chaos. Life is renewed. The glory and power of the Two Lands is renewed. But in that moment, he has taken something he greatly desired. What he has taken is of great value to us. Greater than gold, and greater than life. I stand before you now, as the daughter of Kings, and the daughter of the Goddess Maat who brings justice and order, to give you the news of our great sacrifice, and the God’s great gain. For in the moment of darkness, witnessed by all living things, the King Tutankhamun was united with Ra, as the King must be, and, as it is written in the great books, he is now one with the King of the Gods. And the world is remade. The world is reborn again.’
Her words echoed around the open space. A vast wail of lamentation rose up and spread out through the crowds and the city. I saw people turning to each other, many persuaded, a few shrugging, uncertain. They knew this story of the sacrifice of the King for the renewal of life, for it is one of the oldest of the stories that explain to us how things are in the world. And she had used it wisely. Her words might well convince the multitudes. The elite would certainly require a more sophisticated explanation, but it would be difficult for them to question the story.
She pressed on.
‘I stand before you now. I am the best-loved daughter of Ra. I am
This was followed by another persuasive fanfare from the trumpets; and now, most of the multitude roared their approval. The Queen’s spirit and her beauty seemed to have won them over. But I saw there were others who turned away, unsatisfied, shaking their heads. The battle to win the Two Lands after the death of Tutankhamun remained to be won. If I could prove a connection between Horemheb and Sobek then Horemheb’s position would crumble. If I did not, then I could not see, at this moment, what could prevent him from appropriating, in the name of the army, the kingship.
46
That evening, Thoth and I returned to Nakht’s town house. Minmose offered to shave my head, for if I was to pass through the temple gateway, I needed once again to transform myself into the appearance of a priest. As I was sitting under his blade, with a cloth around my neck, Khety arrived. Luckily for him, he would not need to perform these ritual ablutions, for he was to attend as Nakht’s experimental victim-a non-elite character.
‘Is the guard in place at my home?’ I asked first.
He nodded. ‘Tanefert was not happy about the imposition. But I explained the necessity as well as I could, without frightening her.’
I sighed with relief.
‘And did you impress upon her to make sure the children do not go out, in any event?’
‘I did. Don’t worry. They are safe. They will be guarded night and day.’ Then he allowed himself a quiet chuckle. ‘You make an unconvincing priest,’ he said.
‘Be careful, Khety. You will soon find yourself in a much more compromised position.’
He nodded.
‘That’s what I enjoy about my work. Every night is different. One night patrolling the streets; the next, taking dangerous hallucinogens…’
‘Nakht has concocted something that will look plausibly like the fungus, but will have no effect at all.’
‘So I have to pretend?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ said Nakht, as he entered in his robes. ‘I have made up a simulacra of the dried fungus using ground beans.’
‘I hate beans,’ replied Khety. ‘My wife cooks them, but they have a horrible effect on me…’
‘You will not need to consume more than a mouthful, and so the noxious effects should be absolutely minimal,’ Nakht replied. And then added: ‘Which is surely a relief for all of us.’
‘But what sort of thing should I talk about when I’ve taken the powder?’ asked Khety.
‘Nothing to start with. And then, slowly, imagine that the light of heaven is revealed to you. Let your mind accept the illumination of the Gods.’
‘And what does that look like?’ asked Khety.
Nakht glanced at me, dubiously.
‘Think of light. Describe the beauty of the light, and how you see the Gods moving in light, as if light were thought and thought were light.’
‘I’ll try,’ said Khety, hesitantly.
Nakht had ordered chariots to carry us from his house, up the long Avenue of Sphinxes, to the Great Temple of Karnak. The streets were dark. I noticed boarded-up shop fronts, and some blackened interiors-the damage done during the riots. But the city seemed quiet again. We arrived at the gates, and Nakht spoke to the temple guards, who assessed Khety and me by the light of their lamps. Nakht’s fame here was great, and I prayed that they would ask few questions. He chatted cheerfully to them for a moment, and then, with a last questioning look, we were swiftly waved through. We passed under the gateway and once more into the vast shadowy arena within the temple walls. Beyond the great raised hammered bowls of oil that had been lit throughout the Enclosure, like a constellation of small suns, everything disappeared into an obscure penumbra.
Nakht lit his oil lamp, and we set off across the open ground in the direction of the House of Life. But instead of entering there, he led us further to the right of the building. We followed down several dark passageways between separate buildings-workshops and offices, all deserted for the night. The passageways narrowed and the buildings gave way to storage rooms and magazines, until we reached the high back wall of the Great Enclosure itself. Just there stood a tiny, ancient structure. As we approached I saw the figure of Osiris, God of the Dead, was carved everywhere on its walls, in his white crown flanked by two plumed feathers, surrounded by column after column of dense inscriptions.
‘This chapel is dedicated to Osiris,’ whispered Khety.
‘Precisely. The God of the Otherworld, of night, and darkness, and death before life…but of course he is in truth the God of the light beyond the light, as we say. Of illumination and secret knowledge,’ Nakht replied. Khety nodded, as if he understood, then raised his eyebrows at me.
We passed through the outer chamber, and into the small, dark inner chamber of the temple. Quickly Nakht lit oil lamps in niches around the walls. Rich drifts of incense floated on the shadowy air. He installed me behind one of the pillars, near the entrance, from where I could observe everything that came to pass, and anyone who approached. Then we settled down to wait. And eventually, one by one, twelve other men in white robes arrived. I recognized some of them from the party at Nakht’s house. There was the blue-eyed poet, and the architect. Each man wore a gold pendant on a gold chain around his neck. On each one was an obsidian circle: the dark disc. They greeted Nakht with great excitement, and then examined Khety like a servant for sale. Finally, only Sobek had failed to appear. I felt my plan crumbling away between my fingers. He had not, after all, taken the bait.
Nakht played for time:
‘One of our number is missing,’ he said eventually, loudly enough so that I could hear. ‘We should wait for Sobek.’
