I looked away, across the river. Why should I tell her anything? But of course, I wanted to tell her everything.
‘I dreamed I was home at last. It had been a long time. I was glad. But everyone was gone. I was too late.’
In the silence that followed I stroked the cat over and over, as if my distress could pass into her but cause no harm. She looked up at me with her calm green eyes. I found I could hardly bear to look up and meet the equally direct gaze of her mistress.
‘It was a dream of fear,’ she said.
‘Yes. Just a dream.’
‘Fear is a strong delusion.’
‘It makes some of us human.’
I was suddenly angry. Who was this woman to tell me about fear? But she was angry too.
‘And do you think I do not suffer fear? Do you think I am not human?’
‘I see fear in your eyes when I mention Ay.’
‘What did he say to you?’ Again, she would not leave this alone, worrying at the question like a cat with a dead bird.
‘He was very reasonable. He asked me to give you a message.’
That stopped her. Now she was on to something. I could sense her hunger, her need to know.
‘Give me the message.’ She said this too quietly.
‘He said he knows you are alive. He knows you will return. His question is, what then? His message is: meet him. He will work with you to restore order.’
She shook her head in disbelief and, somehow, disappointment. The noise in her throat was something between a sob and a tiny lost laugh at something that was never very funny.
‘And you thought it right to bring me this message?’
‘I am no messenger boy. I’m telling you what he said. It sounded reasonable.’
‘You are so naive.’
I killed the anger that leaped into my mouth. I tried another line of enquiry.
‘What power has Ay got over you?’
‘No-one has any power over me,’ she said.
‘I don’t think that’s true. Everyone has someone who frightens them. Their boss or their mother, their sworn enemy or the monster under the bed. I think you’re afraid of him. But the strange thing is, I think he’s afraid of you too.’
‘You think too much,’ she said, quickly.
‘People don’t think enough. That’s the whole problem.’
She stayed silent. I knew I had hit upon some nerve, some thread of truth. Some secret bound them together, I was sure. But she changed the subject again, trying to turn the tide of my questions.
‘So you have found out nothing for sure about the plots against me, and instead you have brought me a foolish message and led them, like a decoy, back to me. It’s as well I anticipated the problems.’
I refused to change course. ‘It’s clear what is happening. Tomorrow is the Festival. Akhenaten is besieged by troubles at home and abroad. These troubles are focused now in the very event with which he hoped to resolve them. Why? Because your absence destroys the illusion he needs to perpetuate. Your return will precipitate enormous changes. This is anticipated by several men, including Ay and Horemheb, both of whom are waiting to see what happens when you do reappear. I imagine they wish to take full advantage of any change of authority. You, having sent me back into the lions’ den, then assume me guilty of betrayal when I return to you with the little information I have been able to glean, at some personal cost to myself. And the interesting thing is, Ay is right. I think you have no idea what happens next.’
I found myself, at the end of this outburst, pacing the terrace. At the door, Khety looked alarmed. The waters of the Great River seemed to be listening carefully for Nefertiti’s reply. Eventually it came, very calmly, concealing everything.
‘You are right,’ she said. ‘I have no idea what happens next. I will make my prayers for an outcome that restores peace and stability to all of us.’ She looked out over the dark waters then, and added, ‘I have one request.’ Her eyes searched for mine. I confess my breath was tight in my chest. ‘Will you accompany me tomorrow, when I make my return? Will you do that for me, despite everything?’
I did not even have to think about it. ‘Yes,’ I said. I wanted to be there.
I realized, as I said this simplest of words, that I wanted to face the uncertain future, with its fears and its dreams, with her, no matter where it would take us. I felt suddenly as if the wide, dark water was flowing under my feet; as if this terrace and all of this strange city, this little world of frail lights and hearts like flickering lanterns, were floating on the blackness, borne along on the currents, the fluent and the turbulent, of the river’s long, deep dream.
39
Despite the deprivations of the last few days, for all the gold in the deserts of Nubia I could not sleep. The pain in my finger throbbed in time to my heartbeat, as if it intended to keep me awake-perhaps punishing the rest of my body for its apparent well-being. Perhaps also it was a reminder of my deepest fear. The fate of Tanefert and the girls tormented me, and I turned and turned again from side to side. The weather, too, was heavy, discontented. Irritable gusts of wind cast handfuls of sand and dust in frustration against the outer walls. I could hear a loose door banging in the wind, like a warning. Someone must then have gone out to close it, but somehow the silence after that was worse. Once this coming day was over, and its changes-whatever they were, however good or bad-were brought into being, I would take the first ship south, back home. I would row myself all the way back against the current in a little papyrus reed boat if I had to. The distance and the uncertainty had made me miserable, and I vowed never to leave my family like this again.
I was tossing and turning with these thoughts for company, when I heard footsteps outside my door. I had been given a side chamber to sleep in, and as we three had walked through the house some hours earlier, in a deliberate silence, hardly even bidding each other goodnight, the house had seemed deserted, the rooms shut up, the furniture covered. We were careful to light no lamps, nor give any evidence to the outside world of our presence. Nefertiti had assured us that no-one would think to seek us here, in her own palace. But now the quiet footsteps. They stopped outside my door. I lay very still, holding my breath. Then they continued, softly, and quickly faded away.
I dressed swiftly, and opened the door as quietly as I could. No sign of anyone. The passageway was dark, relieved only by a silvery light where it opened up ahead on to the terrace. All the rooms appeared silent and empty. I arrived at the end of the passage and looked out on to the terrace. The moonlight threw down a tangled labyrinth of black shadows from the vine onto the stones; and among the well-defined tendrils and leaves stood a familiar figure. She seemed part of the design, as if wound into the complicated filigree of light and dark.
I walked across to Nefertiti, now part of the dark design myself. We were silent for a moment, looking out across the moonlit river rather than at each other.
‘Can’t you sleep?’ she asked eventually.
‘No. I heard someone moving about.’
‘Perhaps we could play a game of
‘In the dark?’
‘By moonlight.’
I knew she was smiling. Well, that was something.
We sat down at the board, facing each other across the thirty squares, three rows of ten, in a shape, the snake of life.
‘Green or red?’ she asked.
‘Let’s throw for it.’
She cast the four flat sticks, all of which landed face up on the black side-a propitious start. I threw them and
