Tutankhamun: The Book of Shadows

‘How long will you be gone?’

‘Perhaps ten days…no more than fifteen at most.’

‘That’s what you said last time. And you promised not to do it again.’

‘I’m sorry. Believe me, I have no choice.’

She gave me one of her darkest looks.

‘There is always a choice.’

‘No, you are wrong. I don’t feel I have any choices. I feel trapped by circumstances always beyond my control. And every step I take, in any direction, only takes me deeper and deeper into the trap.’

‘And I fear the knock upon the door. I fear opening it to find some grim Medjay messenger standing there, with a formal expression on his face, preparing himself to give the bad news,’ she replied.

‘It won’t happen. I can take care of myself.’

‘You can’t ever know that for certain. This world is too dangerous. And I know you never feel so alive as when you are at the heart of danger.’

I could say nothing.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Hunting.’

She laughed, despite herself.

‘I’m serious. I’m accompanying the King to the hunting grounds, north of Memphis.’

Her face darkened again.

‘Why?’

I took her down the stairs, and we sat in the shady quiet of our small courtyard. Thoth watched us from his corner. The sounds of the world-the street-sellers, children shouting, their mothers shouting back-came to us distantly. I told her everything.

‘Ankhesenamun…’

‘Yes?’

‘Do you trust her?’

I hesitated, and she saw it.

‘Be careful,’ she said. And she was about to say more when the street door banged open, and I heard Thuyu and Nedjmet coming up the passageway, arguing about something of intense importance. Nedjmet threw herself heavily upon the dozing Thoth, who has learned to tolerate her clumsy embraces. Thuyu embraced us both, and balanced herself against my knees, while she ate a piece of fruit. I admired her sleek grace, and her shining hair.

Tanefert went to fetch them water. My middle daughter quickly told me what was on her mind.

‘I’m not sure I will get married.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I can write and think, and I can look after myself.’

‘But that doesn’t mean you won’t meet someone who you can love…’

‘But why would you choose to love just one person when there are so many people?’

I stroked her hair.

‘Because love is a decision, my darling.’

She mulled this over.

‘Everyone says they can’t help themselves.’

‘That’s falling in love. True love itself is different.’

She wrinkled her face up doubtfully.

‘Why is it different?’

At this point, Tanefert returned with the jug of water, and she poured out four cups, waiting for my answer.

‘Falling in love is romantic and wonderful, and it’s a very special time. That’s when it feels like nothing else matters. But living in love, year after year, in true partnership, that’s the real gift.’

Thuyu looked at both of us, raised her eyes to the heavens, and said: ‘That just sounds so old.’ And she laughed and drank her water.

Then the maid brought Amenmose out into the cooling air of the early evening, awake after his afternoon sleep. He held his arms out, dozily and grumpily, to be picked up; I swung him up on my shoulders so he could rattle the cages of the birds with his little stick. Soon he had them in an uproar of indignant song. I took him down then, and fed him some honey cake and water. Sekhmet returned, too, and joined us, taking her baby brother on her knee, and amusing him.

My father came home from his afternoon game of senet, which he plays with his old cronies. We greeted each other, and then he went to sit in his usual place on the bench, his lined face watching us from the shady corner. The girls sat with him, chatting away. Tanefert began to think about dinner, and issued her instructions to the maid, who bowed and disappeared into the storeroom. I set out a plate of figs, and poured my father and myself a small cup of wine each, from the Dakhla oasis.

‘A libation to the Gods,’ he said, raised his glass, and smiled with his wise gold eyes, observing Tanefert’s quiet sadness.

I looked around at my family, gathered together in the courtyard of my house, on this ordinary evening, and I raised my own cup in libation to the Gods who have granted me the gift of such happiness. Surely my wife was right. Why would I risk all of this present, here and now, for the sake of the unknown? And yet it called to me, and I could not say no.

Part Two

To me belongs yesterday, I know tomorrow.

The Book of the Dead, Spell 17

24

The sun had disappeared over the Malkata Palace’s flat rooftops, and the last of the daylight was abandoning the valleys. The long, low plateau of the western desert glowed red and gold behind us. The great lake was eerily flat, its blackness silvered like polished obsidian, reflecting the dark sky, except when it was disturbed into languorous ripples by the occasional flop of an unseen catfish. The waning moon hung over everything like the curved hull of a white boat, in the deepening indigo of the sky where the first stars were beginning to appear. Servants lit lamps and torches all along the dock so that the place blazed with pools of shadowy, orange light.

All the necessities of a royal progress were slowly, laboriously loaded on to the great royal ship of state, the Beloved of Amun. Her long, elegant curves rose to the high, decorated prow and stern’s carved finials, beautifully proportioned; detailed scenes decorating the kiosks showed the King trampling his enemies in battle; the great sails were furled, and the long oars were still suspended, tilted up against the cabins; surmounting the high mast-heads, royal falcons stretched their golden wings to the silver light of the moon. The whole construction seemed perfectly balanced upon the still waters of the lake. Docked next to her was another, almost as fine, the Star of Thebes. Together they made a glorious pair, the most superior modes of transport yet devised by any civilization, perfected for every luxury and constructed with the deep knowledge of craftsmanship to take every advantage of the given elements of wind and water: the river currents that sweep perpetually down to the delta, or, returning, the reliable northern winds that blow us home.

I was worried. What I had hoped would prove a swift and relatively small-scale event, had become a