down next to Prince Zannanza and Simut, who were both bound and gagged. Simut stared at me in amazement and something like contempt, and then turned his face away.
The compound buildings were on fire. Gusts of bitter smoke drifted into my eyes. Beyond the walls, in the great opium fields, fires raged hugely, turning the great sky dark red and black. The sun was a pale disc, trapped among the thick, billowing clouds of smoke. Everywhere, I heard screams and cries. I knew then that Nakht could not have escaped alive.
The Egyptian troops moved confidently and swiftly around the destroyed ground of the compound. I watched them pick up crying children, and the women who held them close, and hurl them by the arms or legs into the burning pyres, where they fell screaming amid little explosions of bright sparks, and rushes of crackling flame. It seemed to me the God Seth had truly returned to the world, destroying everything in his rage.
Horemheb strode among the horror, issuing orders, and calmly assessing the progress of the massacre. He turned to a line of Inanna’s men, and one by one smote each of them like a king, caving in the backs of their skulls. Their bodies were cast on to the pyres as well. Inanna watched the execution of her army and the destruction of her kingdom with her head held high. On her face I saw a noble melancholy that touched me. And when it was all done, Horemheb ordered his men to hold her up by the hair. Her face was lit by the light of the fires. She looked around her world, knowing this was the end of her life. Finally, her gaze rested on me, and she gave me a look I will never forget, of pity and of loss. And then Horemheb slashed his sword across her throat; blood flowed down her bare breasts, and slowly she slumped forward. Then, in a final act of remorseless triumph, before she was dead, an officer hacked her head from her neck, impaled it on a pole, and stuck the pole in the ground. The soldiers cheered obediently.
And then Horemheb turned his attention to us. His blue-black hair was combed precisely from his imperious forehead. He wore a cuirass made of many overlapping black leather scales that imitated the feathered wings of a falcon. His shield, slung over his shoulder, was covered in cheetah skin, gilded along the edges, and with a gold plate in the centre bearing his name and office. These were the self-conscious trappings of a King; and he looked utterly self-possessed and confident wearing them.
His eyes were stony with contempt as he glanced at the three of us. He nodded to one of his men, who quickly removed the gags from Simut and Prince Zannanza. They coughed and spluttered, gasping at the smoky air.
‘The Prince Zannanza, pointless son of our great enemies, the Hittites. The Commander of the Palace Guard, Simut. And Rahotep, Seeker of Mysteries,’ he said. ‘I remember you well. You are a loyal servant of the Queen. And that of course is why you are here.’
‘I am here by her command,’ I said. ‘Life, prosperity, health to her. I am truly her loyal servant.’
‘Much good it will do you now. For with those futile words you have condemned yourself. And speaking of loyal servants, where is the Royal Envoy Nakht?’ he said.
None of us replied.
‘I know he was here with you. He cannot have escaped. My soldiers have conquered this valley and encircled this miserable hovel; they have orders to bring him to me alive. He will then be interrogated and executed. Stand up, Prince Zannanza, son of the Hittites.’
Zannanza did so, mustering all his courage to confront the general.
‘So this is the weak boy they thought to marry to the Queen of Egypt,’ he said. ‘They thought with this trivial juvenile they could prevent my great victory.’
He paused and glanced at his men. They laughed subserviently, coldly. But Horemheb did not laugh.
‘What should I do with you?’ he said, his face now very close to Prince Zannanza’s.
‘Let me go home,’ whispered the Prince. ‘Let me go home…’
Horemheb cupped his ear, as if he had not heard properly.
‘Speak up! Don’t whisper like a girl.’
‘Let me go home!’ cried Zannanza.
‘The Hittite prince wishes to go home!’
Horemheb’s men sniggered. Horemheb made an exaggerated gesture to the Prince.
‘Go, then. Please, sire. You are free! Do you know which way is home? I suppose it is a long way, so you had better start now.’
Prince Zannanza’s face took on a new depth of despair.
‘
‘Are you still here, Prince?’ he said mockingly.
The Prince raised his face. Horemheb slowly produced his sword. It was long and sharp.
‘What are we going to do with you?’ he said, as if to a truculent child.
‘He is innocent. Do not kill him. Release him to his people!’ I shouted.
Horemheb turned to me.
‘None of you will be released. You are all traitors.’
And then he turned back to the Prince.
‘Your time has come. Pray to your Gods now.’
Prince Zannanza uttered a few words of a prayer in his own language, and then the sword sang through the air, separating his head from his body, with a gust of blood, which spattered across the ground and raised a grim, mirthless cheer from the assembled soldiers.
Horemheb picked up Zannanza’s head by the hair.
‘Send this to his father, Suppiluliuma of the Hittites. And tell him there will be no marriage between Egypt and Hatti. Tell him there will never be peace. Tell him I, Horemheb, hold the royal crook and flail of the Two Lands, and Egypt has no need of his weak son!’
The officer bowed briefly, ran to a horse, and swiftly galloped out of the compound, Zannanza’s once- beautiful head dangling from his fist and staring back sightlessly, as if he wanted to tell me something. The hairs on my neck bristled; I suddenly remembered Khety’s screaming head in my opium dream; and an idea came to me.
Horemheb turned to Simut and me. The opium was betraying me again. I felt an intense frustration in my skin. I was crawling with something-it felt like spiders, or ants. I desperately needed to scratch myself, but my hands were bound.
‘And here we have the leftovers. Kill them, and then burn everything. Leave nothing but ash,’ said the general, and turned away. His men approached us, calmly unsheathing their swords for yet more bloodshed.
‘If you kill us, you will never hear what I know,’ I shouted to his back.
Horemheb turned back to me.
‘What has happened to you, Rahotep? You are an opium addict-look at you, shaking like a lunatic. You are a disgrace to Egypt,’ he said.
He turned away again.
‘A platoon of the Egyptian army is smuggling opium into Thebes,’ I said.
An expression of authentic surprise slipped unguarded across his haughty face.
‘What did you say?’
‘The General of the Armies of the Two Lands would wish to know if one of his own platoons had betrayed him,’ I said.
‘You are lying to save your skin,’ he sneered. ‘Besides, I have heard this story before. It was not true then and it is not now.’
‘I am not lying. It is a platoon within the Seth division,’ I said.
‘You dare to accuse the Seth division of such corruption?’ he drawled.
‘Release me, and I will tell you why,’ I said.
He hit me across the face.
‘Do not bargain with me.’
I was beginning to feel awake again. My mind was clearing.
‘The opium is not transported as a liquid, in jars. They have found a way to distil it into bricks, which are
