‘I believe seven such feathers are in existence,’ he said.
‘Who possesses them?’
‘At last. The right question.’
I waited.
‘I am not going to do all your work for you,’ he said.
‘Let me talk something through, then. Let’s say there are men of great power, disposed against the changes.’
‘It is a revolution. Let us be precise in our language.’
‘These are men who stand to lose a great deal of wealth and power, men who inherit the world through each generation.’
‘Go on.’
‘Families close to Akhenaten who will not, for one reason or another, benefit from the Great Changes.’
‘Go on.’
‘Led by one particular individual.’
He looked at me enigmatically. I decided to play my card.
‘Ay.’
I let the name sit there, like the feather, on its own. He smiled, conspiratorially. I felt like I had won a round of
‘You speak carelessly,’ he said softly, opening the door again. ‘If he were to hear of such a thought, he would be displeased. He is as close as possible to the King himself. There is not a hair’s breadth between them.’
I was about to rise, certain the interview was concluded, when he spoke again.
‘Let me just offer you one clue before you leave. The Society of Ashes.’
His tone was full of a concentrated implication, and there was something malicious in it. He was feeding me words with the intention that I unwittingly fit in with his plans.
‘The Society of Ashes? What is that?’
‘A mystery.’
He picked up the feather, twirled it enigmatically in the light, and offered it back to me. I moved to the door and took it. He was smiling in the way men do who do not know what a smile is.
As I passed him, I asked suddenly, ‘How is your wife?’
For the only time in the meeting he looked unguarded for a moment. In fact he looked disgusted. Perhaps also a flicker of pain, quickly disguised, passed over his face.
‘My wife is none of your business.’
The door closed in my face.
34
As we walked away up the street, Khety asked me what had happened. I found it hard to give him a concise account, for the truth behind the conversation-the things we could not talk about-was elusive. I asked him about the Society of Ashes. He had never heard of it. ‘It sounds like something aristocratic, one of those invitation-only, shake-hands-in-a-funny-way type of things.’
‘It’s connected somehow with the gold feather.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Because I showed Horemheb the feather, and almost immediately he mentioned the society. I feel a tingle at the back of my head. I just can’t quite…get to it.’
The heat was now tremendous, and no northern breeze lightened its burden. We walked slowly in the shadows of the buildings, thinking and thinking as we made our way back along the side of the Royal Road. Wagons and chariots struggled for right of way with calls and curses from the drivers. The constant traffic was a sign of the closeness of the Festival. There was a nervous tension in the air you could almost taste, a mix of metal and dust and something else-fear. I remembered the excitement I had felt on the first day of all this, the unforgivable thrill at the prospect of mystery in such high places. What a fool I was. I had understood nothing.
We walked out of the suburb. In the near distance stood the strange palace, square and squat and dark like a locked box. Curious, I made my way over towards it, Khety trailing uncertainly behind me. It looked abandoned. The great doors sagged slightly against each other. From inside came strange cries, like those of children, but wilder. Then came the questing, trilling call of a flute…and a repetition of the same cry.
I pushed the door cautiously, and it swung back heavily on its hinges. There was no sign of anyone. We moved up some marble steps into a large courtyard open to the sky. A dry fountain, stained with what looked like centuries of grey and white bird-shit, stood in the centre, and from it ran four low canals of stagnant green water. Over the open roof a web of netting had been strung, and here and there lengths of cloth, once boldly coloured, now faded, were laid out to provide shade. Under the arches of the courtyard hung many cages, some empty, some still containing little birds. Suddenly a parakeet, on brilliant wings, dashed across the empty space, squawking as it went. His activity seemed to spark off the others, and the air filled with a chaos of calls.
In the middle of all this a voice called out, ‘Who’s there?’ An old man stood up slowly from his bench in the shadows and shuffled over towards us.
‘We heard the cries…the door was open,’ I said.
‘So you just thought you would come in and satisfy your curiosity.’
‘Who lives here?’
‘No-one. Not for a year now. Someone has to look after the birds. No-one else cares about them.’
He called out, and the parakeet fluttered down from its perch. It landed, a storm of greens and golds, on his shoulder and nibbled appreciatively at his hairy ear. Then it looked up at us and let out a terrific aria, as if imitating some highly trained singer who might have performed here.
‘Who used to live here?’ I asked again.
‘A queen. Well, she was almost a queen, for a time. I wonder if her name is still known now that she is no longer a favourite.’
‘What is her name?’
‘Kiya.’
The bird repeated it with the sing-song call of a disappointed lover. I had not heard of her.
‘What happened to her?’ I asked.
The old man shrugged. ‘She fell from grace. Power is like fire. It consumes everything. And when it is gone, all that’s left is ash.’
He spoke as if this could happen to any of us at any moment, and we too would turn into ash and shadows. I looked about at the faded, failed grandeur of the place. How quickly the present becomes the past.
We left him there, with his birds and their fading calls, returned to the barque and set off back up the river towards the central city, no northern breeze helpful in our single sail, the sun magnified by the water, burning our faces and heads. We shaded our eyes as best we could and kept close to the eastern bank whose overhanging trees afforded occasional shade. But as we approached the main dock, a line of papyrus skiffs manned by uniformed and armed soldiers prevented all traffic from getting closer. The water around the dock had been cleared of traffic and we could see occupying this bright clearing an exceptional ship of state.
It was enormous, at least a hundred cubits in length, with two deck-houses, and stalls for chariot horses at the deck level. Above those, reached by a staircase-stairs on a boat! — were elaborate accommodations and porticoes built out on slim columns. A floating palace. The hull curved in a vast, elegant shape up to gold lotus- buds, topped with an Aten disc. A large protective Horus eye was painted on the prow. Streamers ran from prow and stern. There were at least thirty rowers on either side, their sweating heads just protruding above the gunwales. The vast blue sail, decorated with a pattern of gold stars, hung from a mast that ran in height almost to the equivalent of the full length of the ship, and along two long yardarms. A golden falcon stood on the top of the mast. Priests holding wands and fans were lined up on deck. An orchestra must have been hidden out of sight, for the sounds of their music came to us across the water.
