‘And you’re the man who’s going to help me save the world.’
I knew we were under the river. Little gusts of hot wind, ghostly underworld breezes, tugged at the flames of our torches but could not extinguish them. I caught glimpses of more painted scenes on the walls, the spirits of the dead enjoying the delights of the Otherworld. We tell ourselves stories of happiness and liberty beyond the grave, but we build our temples and tombs in darkness, and frighten ourselves with fables of monsters and secret names. In the confident light of the torches and in Khety’s bright company, however, the passageways that had so alarmed me the previous night lost their power to conjure fear in my mind.
After some time walking in silence we came to a long set of stairs ascending towards a dark trap door. Slivers of light cut through the wooden planks like long knife blades. We listened carefully, but could hear only a kind of shuffling and a snuffling; something like slow, clumsy dancers. With infinite caution, Khety lifted the trap door. The light dazzled us after our time in the darkness. He looked out carefully, then pushed back the door, and we pulled ourselves up into the daylight.
The first thing that assailed me was the smell. Pigs. The rotting stink of old mud, old vegetables and pig-shit. They looked like a gathering of corrupt dignitaries, their undiscerning wobbly jaws not ceasing to chew as they observed us with only one question in mind: were we consumable? The sty was low, so we had to crouch as we hurried through it, holding our noses, trying without success to keep our feet out of the mess. We emerged into a fetid, narrow lane, detritus and human and animal shit gathering in the foul gullies to either side. Labourers were passing in crowds where the narrow passageway opened, some way along, on to a wider thoroughfare, and the noise of daily humanity from a better world washed over us. There was a doorway covered with a rotting tapestry directly opposite the sty, and we passed quickly across. We found ourselves in a hot, dusty storeroom piled high with rubbish, old jugs, jars, broken bits and pieces of everything. There was a further door that led into another room with two simple straw mattresses, a supply of water in a stone jar, and a box containing basic rations. A rickety old ladder with rungs missing led up to a door that gave on to the roof. Khety locked the front door from the inside.
‘Home sweet home,’ he said.
Inside another box we found workers’ clothes, simple bolts of rough cloth and cheap rope sandals, together with more middle-class but undistinguished clothing, from which we could fashion our appearances as required. But first I wanted to go up onto the roof to get my bearings. I quickly pulled a relatively clean cloth around my head and shoulders, and ascended the ladder. I pushed open the roof door and carefully looked out. It was a view of the city unlike any I had noticed before. A chaos of adjoining roofs made up, in their crazy, improvised pattern, a kind of small shanty town. It was no doubt home to many of the invisible poor who kept the city clean and working. The heat shimmered in the air, and nothing stirred. The whole place had the abandoned feel of mid-afternoon, but it seemed lifeless too, lacking the intense colours of drying fruit and vegetables, the chickens scratching in their enclosures, and the daily washing hung from lines which characterized the rooftops of Thebes. No leaping children here, just a few old women moving about desultorily, their heads bowed to their perpetual labour, rearranging tatty clothing as it dried on boards or on lines in the bleaching glare of the afternoon sun. No-one took any notice of me.
The best view was to the river, and in particular down to the long dock from which I had sailed with the hunting party only a few days ago. Now, however, instead of pleasure boats and singing young women, the whole dock was crowded with river traffic, and on the open water packs of boats jostled one another, waiting to land their various cargoes. It was like watching a slow, untidy battle from the curious and remote vantage of a fly.
Some of the ships were carrying timber, stone, fruits and corn. From one, amid a fury of calls, cries and trills that made up an anxious music, appeared howling monkeys on strings, gibbering and shrieking with confused excitement, cages of coloured crying birds, trained hawks on gauntlets, and in a strong box a large baboon, staring out at this crude, noisy world with dignified contempt. Gazelles, antelope and zebra slipped and shivered on their neat hooves as they were roughly manhandled down the gangplanks. From another ship came a troupe of pygmies from Punt executing quick movements, walking on their hands, tossing one another through the air for the delight of the crowds.
All of this for the Festival. The gifts, tributes and supplies of food and drink and entertainment from the Empire and beyond were starting to arrive in the city to support and satisfy the appetites of a unique congregation of the rich and powerful. It was an event none would relish but to which all would have been deeply offended not to be invited. To be seen here, in state, participating among the great powers was a signifier of high status. And each king would bring his family, his retinues, his ambassadors and civil servants, their officials, their secretaries, their assistants, their assistants’ assistants, and then ranks of servants, in their own hierarchies. The city still did not seem ready for such a vast swelling of its population, and I imagined the crowds becoming so great that people would have to sleep in the desert, in the tombs above the city, or in the fields, like a plague of locusts.
There was a noise behind me, and Khety’s head appeared through the trap door. He joined me on the parapet.
‘Crazy, isn’t it, a jubilee festival now?’ he said. ‘I mean, it hasn’t been thirty years since the beginning of the reign.’
‘Akhenaten desperately needs to assert his status and confirm the new capital,’ I responded. ‘And he knows that in a crisis one must celebrate a festival or start a war. Even if he refuses to accept it, his chief advisers know things are in danger of falling apart in the country, and outside it. He has domestic and foreign problems, and the harvest last year was poor again. People are not being paid regularly. They’re worried, and if he’s not careful they’ll get angry. He needs to demand homage in public from everyone, not least his internal enemies and foreign allies, and to reassert his territorial claims and rights over the kingdoms of the Empire. But this whole spectacle will be undermined unless the Queen is restored. No wonder he’s so desperate.’
The prospect of a major celebration brought back memories for me. ‘I was a young child during the last jubilee, under Amenhotep. People said it was unlike any other witnessed before. He ordered the Birket Habu lake to be created near the palace where he and the gods and the royal family could process on barges. Can you imagine, Khety, an artificial lake of that size? All the years of labour, all the lives sacrificed for one day of festivities. My father held me up on his shoulders so I could see above the crowds. It was all happening a long way away, but I remember a giant crocodile cutting through the water, its tail moving slowly from side to side, its eyes moving to and fro, glittering as if packed with broken glass, and its jaws, with great white teeth, opening and closing. Of course it had been constructed out of wood and ivory and some kind of clever mechanics, and built on the bed of a boat. But to my eyes it was Sobek-Ra, the crocodile god. I was terrified! And then came Amenhotep, on a huge gold barge rowed by many slaves, seated on a high throne, wearing the two crowns. And the gods, hidden in cabins, travelling on their golden boats from the east to the west. I could hardly breathe. Strange, the things that compel us. Now I would look at the same spectacle and see illusion, make-believe, a show. I’d see nothing but the crude mechanisms, the wealth and the engines of labour that work the scenes of the spectacle. Am I better off now, or was it better when I believed?’
There was no useful answer to this question, and besides we had other thoughts to preoccupy our minds. We looked out at the panorama of activity below us. Among the ships just docking I noticed one remarkably fine specimen, distinguished by its elegant shape, the glossy perfection of its costly woods and inlays, and the glorious richness of its sails-a military ship of the highest class. Clearly this was transporting a VIP. Dockers caught the ropes cast out by its sailors, and deftly manoeuvred the ship into its place. Among the figures of the working sailors in their uniforms appeared another of stature, surrounded by officials. I was too far away to see him well, but he was accorded the utmost respect: there was a military reception and an official guard awaiting his arrival, no doubt sweltering under their umbrellas as they waited for the tedious business of docking to be accomplished. The sound of a fanfare came quietly but clearly across the hot, thick air as the mystery man stepped down into the throng.
Khety shaded his eyes. ‘Horemheb.’
I gazed at this figure who had suddenly assumed a great importance in my mind. As I watched, there was a moment of ceremony between the reception committee, the brisk, no-nonsense man, and the retainers who followed him at a respectful distance down the gangplank. Then he moved off through the crowds, his armed escort beating back with sticks and batons any careless person who did not instantly bow his head and make way.
Khety, who could pass unnoticed in a crowd more freely than I could, departed to speak to his brother and find a means of access to the archives. After he left, I stayed watching on the roof as the cavalcade of materials and people continued to flow into the unfinished, soon to be overwhelmed city. And above us all the birds, circling;
