worked two fingers into my eye sockets, and pushed until brief stars of agony exploded in the red sky of my head. I thought he would crush my head in his hands. I struggled in my bonds, spat at him, flailed uselessly. ‘Before you lose your mind, I want answers. Where is the Queen?’
I refused to answer. He pressed harder. My head lit up with incandescent arcs of pain.
‘Where is the Queen?’
I still refused to answer. Would he crush my eyes in my head? Suddenly the pressure vanished. I blinked but could make out nothing but a strange vision of whirling shapes and colours. I shook my head to try to clear my sight. His kick caught me in the face. The force of the blow travelled fast through my head. Acrid bile seeped into my mouth. Sickly sweet blood dripped from my split lips. I could feel the outline of my teeth blooming and swelling on my bruised mouth.
Through the roaring in my head I heard him ask again, without changing the expression of his voice: ‘Where is the Queen?’
‘As it is said in the Chapters of Coming Forth by Day.’
‘What?’
‘As it is said in the Chapters of Coming Forth by Day.’
‘I dislike riddles.’
‘Her sign is Life.’ And this time I smiled.
He punched it off my face. ‘I will break every bone of your fingers if I have to. And then how will you write in that little journal? You won’t be able to hold your own cock to piss.’
I waited a little while, then with all the strength I had I said, ‘Do you go down into the Otherworld.’
His anger showed in his face. Good. Then, with a sigh, as to a recalcitrant child, he casually picked up my left hand and with a swift motion jerked back the little finger. The tiny crack echoed around the cell. I cried out.
He looked closely into my eyes, as if to enjoy at close range the spectacle of my suffering. I saw the black dots of his pupils, and my own distorted face reflected in his eyes. ‘No-one is going to save you this time, Rahotep. It is too late. Akhenaten himself does not know you are here. You have disappeared into thin air. You are nobody. Nothing.’
The pain was still singing in my hand, and I feared I would vomit again.
‘You have very little time left to find the Queen,’ I croaked. ‘And if you cannot, then the Festival is going to be a catastrophe for Akhenaten, and for you and for this city. I am your only lead. You cannot afford to kill me.’
‘I don’t need to kill you. Others will take care of that. But I find I do need to hurt you very badly. And we can go on for some time.’
‘No matter what you do to me, know this: I will not tell you what I know. I would rather die.’
‘It is not you who will die. Do you understand me?’
I looked into his eyes. I understood his threat. Hathor, Lady of the West, forgive me now. I did the only thing possible.
‘As it is said in the Chapters of Coming Forth by Day.’
His eyes turned colder, as if all light had suddenly abandoned them. He reached for my hand again. I prepared myself, silently uttering a prayer. My whole body was shivering now. He waited, relishing my suffering, timing his move.
‘Tell me where she is.’
I looked into his eyes with all the defiance left in me. ‘No.’
He grasped another finger to snap the next little bone.
36
A quiet but entirely authoritative voice possessed the sudden silence of the cell: ‘What is happening here?’
He had entered unnoticed. Perhaps both Mahu and I had been too engaged with the enactment of our mutual antagonism, the blood and sweat of what was happening; but it was as if he carried no shadow, made no noise, as if he had suddenly appeared from thin air. Ay. His very name was weightless. Thin air, indeed, seemed to describe his presence. But what force has thin air that it can cause a thug like Mahu to leap to his feet, alarmed, already stammering his excuses?
‘Release this man from his bonds,’ Ay whispered almost, to ensure we all listened carefully.
Mahu nodded, full of hatred and uncertainty, and the guards did as they were ordered. I cradled my damaged hand and bloody wrists.
‘This man is naked,’ Ay added, as if mildly puzzled. He looked enquiringly at Mahu, who gestured vaguely, at a loss to answer. Ay’s face modulated into an expression that in others would have constituted a smile. His lips pulled back to reveal evenly spaced fine white teeth, the teeth of a man whose diet is so refined nothing ever rots or damages them. But his grey eyes smiled not at all. ‘Perhaps you should offer him your own clothes,’ he said softly.
Mahu looked so surprised I almost laughed. And his hands did indeed stray towards his own linens as if he would actually obey this absurd command. Then Ay, with a dismissive nod, made it clear that my clothing should be brought for me-which it was, instantly. I dressed as quickly as I could, despite the sickening pain of my broken finger, and immediately felt stronger, more equal. The three of us stood in silence. I wondered what could possibly happen now. Ay let Mahu suffer; he stood there wishing he were made of stone.
‘Did this man not expressly state to you that he was under my protection?’ Ay enquired of Mahu.
If it was possible, I was momentarily the more startled. Mahu glanced at me.
‘Yet what do I find? The chief of police personally enacting his own little inquisition. I am very surprised.’
‘I detained him in the course of my duties, and with the authority of Akhenaten himself,’ Mahu countered.
‘I see. So the King knows you have this man here for interrogation?’
Mahu could say nothing.
‘I do not think he would approve of your treatment of a fellow officer whom the King himself decided, from the depth of his wisdom, to appoint.’
Then he turned to me and I looked for the first time properly into his frozen grey eyes-full, it suddenly struck me, of snow.
‘Come with me.’
I would save my vengeance on Mahu for later, and relish it then. It took all my willpower not to punch him hard in the face with my good hand as I walked past him. He knew it, too. Instead I just stared at him, then carried on, as well as I was able, and followed the footsteps of Ay up the stone stairs, towards the weak light of day staining these miserable walls.
We were soon in a wide brick-lined shaft, perhaps a hundred cubits deep, like an enormous well that had not yet struck water, and never would. Stairs wound up the sides, and at every level chambers like those in a catacomb disappeared quickly in different directions into inky shadows. The entrances to these were barred but I saw, as we passed, the still-living mortal remains of men in the darkness, little piles of skin and bone, some with their white eyes open, in tiny cages not fit for dogs. In another space I saw men buried up to their noses in large sand-filled clay vases, like the ibises and baboons we dedicate in sacred catacombs. Madness and despair showed in their eyes. These men had been abandoned here and could no longer speak to defend or betray themselves. There was almost no sound.
Ay acknowledged the existence of none of this horror; he just walked up the stairs methodically, step by step, as if it cost him no effort. I followed, my mind bewildered by events and these sights, until finally, out of breath, I stepped out of that pit of suffering and misery and into the ordinary light of day. Suddenly there was the world again: heat and brightness, and guards sitting bored in the shadows of a reed hut. They all rose instantly to respectful attention when they saw Ay.
Ay got into a carrying chair, already prepared with uniformed carriers, and motioned for me to sit beside him. Shading my eyes against the blaze of daylight, I suddenly recognized where we were: in the Red Land behind the
