Egypt

her private guard, which she had made five years before; but the palace was never my world-I was a Seeker of Mysteries, and no matter what the cost, and no matter how absurd it might seem, I had no choice but to remain true to myself.

Up on the roof, the large terrace was set out with many trays on stands, piled high with the finest of foods in ostentatious quantities: whole ducks in thick glazes; big roasted haunches of gazelle, sliced finely to reveal the pink meat; roasted gourds and shallots; bread rolls; honeycombs; olives glistening in oil on decorated platters; lustrous bunches of shining grapes that caught the evening sunlight; and mountains of figs and dates. Servants dispensed fine wine from the Dakhla oasis. I would dearly have loved a goblet of decent wine, as I could no longer indulge such luxuries at home. My mouth watered; I stopped myself from smuggling a handful of almonds from a dish. After the last guests had departed, Nakht would insist that I take as many of the leftovers as I wished home for the children. ‘Otherwise it will just be thrown away,’ he would say, trying to find a way to make his charity acceptable, while pressing a small cask of excellent wine upon me. We would eat like kings for the next few days; and for a little while we would not have to suffer the same old onions, garlic, bony fish and gritty bread that had become our staple diet.

As Nakht made elegantly witty conversation with a rich couple, while they fawned over and flattered each other, I gazed out over the city in the glorious evening light. The grey, red and yellow flat rooftops of Thebes, crowded with drying vegetables and broken bits and pieces of household furniture, spread away in every direction. The Avenue of Sphinxes, the vast, straight, paved processional, ran to the north, joining the Temple of Karnak and the Southern Temple, whose towering, painted mud-brick walls reared up near by. I watched as a temple army phalanx laboriously conducted the handover to the night guards in the open ground before the vast pylon. To the west ran the Great River, the source of all life, like a brown and green serpent, glittering silver now as the sunset flowed on its ever-changing surfaces. Further, beyond the cultivation on the west bank, and the stark borderline where the Black Land of the cultivation and the Red Lands of the desert divided, lay the long stone mortuary temples; and beyond them the hills and valleys, now painted in the blacks, yellows and reds of sunset, where the royal tombs preserved the great kings in their stone sarcophagi and gold coffins, timeless and secret. To the south, also on the west bank, I could just make out the squat shapes of the Malkata Palace, home of the royal family, hidden at the heart of the extensive labyrinth of overseers’, administrators’ and officials’ accommodation. And beyond the city’s boundaries, beyond the green and black fields, beyond all the monuments and statues made by men upon the face of the earth, lay the great unknown of the Red Lands, that other world of dust and sandstorms and dangerous spirits and death, which had always held such power for me.

The evening sun had dropped low now, and the sky was turquoise, indigo, crimson and gold; the sweet northern breeze of the evening hour had begun to cool the air. At a discreet nod from Nakht, the servants took down the exquisitely embroidered awnings, and lit many little oil lamps. The guests settled on chairs-with low chaises for the women-set out for comfort. I looked at their affluent faces and opulent outfits, gilded by the last of the evening light. They lived in a different world from those in the streets all around them.

I shadowed Nakht as he moved over to a small coterie of close friends who frequented his mansion. Hor the poet was talking, as usual; wittily and bitchily entertaining his friends with scurrilous accounts of high-level indiscretions and scandals, usually of a sexual nature. I used to think poets were dreamers of truth and beauty, with their heads in the Otherworld. But Hor was chubby and self-satisfied, worldly and successful. His little fingers were heavy with valuable gold rings. He was famous for a series of verses, circulated anonymously some years ago, which daringly satirized Ay, once vizier, now King. Today such things would earn him summary execution.

‘Friends, I have written a new poem,’ he announced ostentatiously. ‘It is a trifle, but perhaps I may impose it upon you…’

A polite murmur of encouragement followed.

‘I hope it is a cheerful one,’ said someone.

‘There is no such thing as a cheerful poem,’ he replied. ‘Happiness writes in water, not ink.’

Everyone nodded as if this was a very wise thing to say. He assumed his posture of poetic delivery, head tilted, fingers of the right hand raised, and when he had satisfied himself that he had everyone’s attentive silence, he intoned:

Who can I trust today?

Brothers are evil, and friends have no compassion.

Hearts are greedy

And each man steals

His neighbour’s worldly goods.

Compassion has perished,

Violence walks the ways,

Evil runs rampant

Throughout the land-

Evil, endless evil…

And so it went on. When it was over, his cheerless dirge-which I thought truthful, but repetitive and not particularly original-was met with a worried silence, before the audience applauded hastily. Nakht sensed the mood of the evening was threatening to turn the wrong way.

‘Remarkable poem. Concise, memorable and honest,’ he said.

‘I see I have shocked you all a little. But to be a poet is to accept the responsibility of speaking the truth! No matter what the cost to my personal safety,’ said Hor, taking a deep, sustaining gulp from his cup of wine.

‘Your relationship with the truth has always been a very flexible and accommodating one,’ said Nebi, a well- known architect, dressed in an expensive embroidered tunic.

‘Of course it has, in matters of men and this world. I’m a poet, not a complete fool…’ Hor replied.

‘But the truth itself is so complicated these days,’ said another.

‘The truth is always the truth,’ said Nakht, smiling at his own triteness.

Hor waved him away. ‘I can’t bear platitudes. They actually hurt my feelings,’ he said.

All this talk of truth was making me want to go and do something useful.

‘However, I have heard some interesting news, friends,’ continued Hor, smiling his evil little grin. The others huddled a little closer, checking over their shoulders to make sure no one else was listening. And then, after a carefully timed pause, the poet leaned forward, as if among conspirators, and in a theatrical whisper said: ‘He will soon be with the Gods.’

Everyone understood what he meant but could not say. Ay, the hated tyrant who ruled over the Two Lands, had long outlived the expectation of his natural life.

‘But this is hardly new news. And even if he were to pass on, how would anyone really know? He’s looked dead for years…’ joked Nebi’s wife, to a little round of laughter.

‘Mark my words. I have it on authority: it may be only weeks. And none of us will be laughing then.’

The guests glanced at each other and shivered, as if the balmy evening air was suddenly running with strange, cold currents.

‘So the moment we have all feared for so very long is about to arrive! The end of this great dynasty-and the end of the age of peace and prosperity!’ cried another, mournfully.

‘And so at last comes General Horemheb’s chance,’ said Nebi. ‘And with it perhaps the end of the world as we have known it.’

‘The general will claim more than the crowns. He will claim everything. And then he will do what he likes with us…’ said an older man, with his elegantly beautiful young wife sitting subserviently behind him.

‘I heard he has a secret papyrus on which he has recorded a list of the names of all his enemies, and all those who have opposed him, or failed to support him, over the years,’ whispered Nebi.

‘How many of us will be on that list!’ replied the older man, looking around at the company.

‘It is a dismal prospect,’ agreed Hor. Lifting his stubby hand to the west, like a tragic actor, he intoned: ‘Like an army of shadows, his numberless soldiers in their divisions will return from their long campaigns against our arch-enemies, the Hittites, and turn their forces instead upon our own great people, to conquer and dominate and suppress our liberty. I see his ships, under blood-red sails, appearing out of the dark night. I see his troops occupying the streets of our city. I see the best men led forth to execution. I see calamity. I see blood running in