‘Good,’ said Ay. ‘I will prepare for tomorrow. The people love you, daughter. Your strategy in outwitting your enemies was admirable. You have returned from the Otherworld. We will of course make use of this. You must become co-regent. You are a star among us lesser mortals.’
‘And if I refuse this proposal?’
He laughed quietly. ‘You are my child. I know you too well. Let us not waste time. I will make the necessary preparations, and await you at the palace for a public ceremony of return tomorrow. The guards will remain here to escort you back, when you come to the right decision. If you do not, they will follow my other orders. You may well guess what they are. Tomorrow is another day.’
‘You would kill your own grandchildren?’
‘Remember: there is no love, only power. As your maid knows. Don’t you, Senet? You should ask her about it. And about scarabs. I like to leave my mark, you know.’
He turned and left. No-one dared to speak. Senet shivered.
‘He has such power,’ she whispered, with loathing and misery.
‘Let me tell your story,’ I said, as gently as possible.
She nodded.
‘You killed Seshat.’
She looked up, but did not contradict me.
‘You brought her to her death. You brought down the blows upon her face. You left the scarab hidden on her body.’
She continued to stare at me.
‘You wore gloves to hide the damage to your hands. You let me think something was missing from the Queen’s jewellery. You let me believe the scarab belonged to the Queen. But the scarab was given to you by Ay. He told you to place it on the body. He said it was his mark, his sign. He was right. He is from the dung of the earth. The lowest of the low. Yet he pushes kings and queens like suns into the light of the new day.’
Senet glanced at the Queen, who gazed at her almost compassionately.
‘You fulfilled his instructions. You ferried the disguised girl up the river and then, in the dark, when she was not expecting it, you hit her. She would have been badly wounded by the first blow, but it must have taken much more strength of mind, as well as body, to beat her face off.’
She looked directly at me now. ‘It takes a long time to kill someone,’ she said. ‘The first blow was simple. But she would not die. She kept making noises, even though she had no mouth left. I beat her until she was finally silent. It took a long time.’
The chamber was silent. I continued with the story.
‘She dressed in the clothes you brought from the Queen’s wardrobe. She was wearing a headscarf, as required by the instructions. But you did not know, until I told you, who you had killed. You only knew it was a woman. As far as Ay was concerned it did not matter who died and who lived. But it mattered to you. You murdered and mutilated an innocent woman. Her family loved her dearly.’
‘So did I,’ she said, proudly. ‘I loved her with all my heart.’
They had been lovers. The simple words of truth.
‘Please show me your hair,’ I asked.
She nodded, slowly revealing a cropped head of auburn hair. Khety looked at me, understanding now.
Senet spoke again, this time to the Queen. ‘He knew everything. He could read my thoughts and dreams. He told me he would expose us, Seshat and me, not only to you, my Lady, but to the world. I could bear this. But then he told me he would have her killed if I did not do as he commanded. If I did not tell him everything. He told me what I had to do. He told me to take the sealed instructions and the clothes to the Harem as if they were from the Queen. A woman would be brought. And he told me what I must do. He told me we must not speak. He told me where to take her, and how to do what I was to do. What choice did I have? What would you have done?’
These last questions were directed at me, but all I could offer her was a look of understanding. She suddenly howled with grief, clutching and beating at her own head. ‘Hathor, Lady of the Sky, Lady of Destiny, she who is powerful, forgive me. I have killed the woman I loved! I acted out of love and fear. Now there is nothing but death.’
Nefertiti touched her on the shoulder, gently. ‘If you had come to me with the truth I could have protected you.’
The maid looked up at her slowly. ‘He is greater than all of us. He is Death. Do you know he kissed me? On the lips. From that moment I was doomed.’ She picked up the dagger I had thrown away, walked out of the tomb chamber and disappeared into the darkness. I knew no-one could save her, and I knew we would never find her. I hoped the goddess Nut would spread herself over the girl and find some place for her among the imperishable stars.
Khety and I walked outside for some fresher air. It was the darkest part of the night, and the moon had sailed low and deep on the horizon. We sat down like two glum monuments.
‘I thought I knew Senet well,’ he said. ‘When did you work it out?’
‘I knew there were strange and missing elements to her story. But her grief betrayed her.’
He nodded. ‘That man is a monster.’
‘I don’t believe in monsters, Khety. That makes it too easy for the rest of us. Ay is one of us, in the end.’
‘That makes it worse,’ he said.
I had to agree.
Nefertiti came out from the chamber. Khety moved away respectfully, leaving us alone. I had things to say now.
‘That was quite a story you told me, when we first met, about your father and your family. You fooled me well.’
She looked at me calmly. ‘When you are born without parents, you spend all your time imagining them. You imagine them as perfect people. To make up for all the things that didn’t happen you dream up all the stories, and the stories seem real. Until one day…’
‘The truth.’
‘Yes. I imagined my father as a good man, a wonderful, kind man. One day I believed he would come to rescue me. I believed he would take me up on his white horse and we’d ride away together, for ever. Safe.’
‘I could have destroyed him for you.’
She paused, thinking. ‘No. You could have killed him, but then he would still be inside me, inside my head, for ever. That is worse, perhaps. Perhaps all I can do is forgive him. For what he has done to me. For what he has done to others. If I can do that, then he has no power over me any more.’
I was again amazed and appalled. ‘Forgive him? He’s used your life, his own child’s, as a means to an end, as a way to power, and he’s threatened to kill you and your children. There is no love in him.’
‘That does not mean I should not forgive him. Love begets love. Hate begets hate. Revenge begets revenge. The choice is mine.’
‘So you will accept his demands? Will you keep the feather?’
‘I must. There is no choice. This is the destruction of all we have worked for; it is the end of the dream of a better way. But I warned you: the world makes its demands upon us, upon me, and I cannot say no. I have enough power to save those I love, and to influence the course of the future. I have a responsibility to the future.’
Then a thought came to me very clearly. ‘I will not see you again.’
She took my hand in hers. ‘I will not forget you.’
We sat there for a long time, together.
42
Well before dawn, in order to return without being seen, we descended from the tomb chamber and began to walk across the chilly dark plain towards the city and an unknowable future. I glanced across at Nefertiti, the Perfect One, who walked beside me now. She looked calmer, resolute; her eyes were raised, looking ahead steadily. Perhaps knowing the truth was easier, for all its horror, than living with uncertainty. The older girls stumbled beside
