I stood for a while leaning against that sycamore trying to control my breathing, the pounding of my heart. I had glimpsed beauty before, the eyecatching elegance of the temple girls, but this was different. At the time I wondered who she was. Tuthmosis had sisters but she couldn’t be one of these. I reckoned she must have been in her seventeenth or eighteenth summer, perhaps a little younger. Her skin looked golden, not as dark as Queen Tiye’s, so was she from beyond Egypt’s borders? Yet the way she walked and acted showed her to be very much at home with the most imperious of Egypt’s queens. The gates of the Pavilion closed. I heard the bar falling into place. Were they visiting the Veiled One? Yet he was absent, drinking and carousing with us or pretending to. Was she the reason he looked so glum, so downcast? I turned and walked slowly back. The noise from the eating-house had grown, drowning the musicians and the singers. The door was flung open and Sobeck, followed by Maya, came staggering out. They brushed by me lost in their own tangle of words and crossed to a grassy verge where they both urinated cackling with laughter, sharing some obscene joke before lurching back.
‘Sobeck.’ I caught his arm. He turned blearily.
‘What is it, Baboon?’ He swayed on his feet.
Maya, just as drunk, tried to hold him straight.
‘Sobeck, you’ve been careful since your return?’
My glimpse of that beautiful woman had provoked anxieties about my companion, the nearest I had to a friend. ‘Sobeck, you’ve been nowhere near the imperial harem?’
Sobeck tried to speak, tapped the corner of his nose and, bawling with laughter, allowed Maya to take him back to the door.
I walked a little further. Huy came out with two hesets, disappearing into the darkness and soon the silence was broken with cries and pretty screams. The door opened again. I turned, half-expecting the Veiled One, but Hotep came out, fan in one hand, a strangely carved amethyst goblet cupped in the other. He held this up and toasted me, acknowledging my bow.
‘It has a sacred emerald in it.’ He drained the cup and pushed it towards me, twisting it so I caught the light of the emerald within. ‘A sure protection,’ he murmured, drawing closer, ‘against poison. It changes colour if any foul potion or substance is mixed with the wine.’
‘You fear assassination?’
I was still immersed in the vision of beauty I had seen, impatient at having to talk to anyone. Hotep’s patrician face creased into a smile. ‘Power and murder walk hand-to-hand.’
‘A fine celebration.’ I gestured towards the light-filled windows through which the candles and oil lamps glowed. ‘Colonel Perra would have been very impressed.’
‘His corpse was never found.’ Hotep slipped the fan into a small pocket in his robe and caressed the cup. ‘The men responsible were impaled, their sons sold into slavery. Those who survived were brought back to Thebes.’
‘How many?’
‘Only a few survived the march,’ Hotep grinned. ‘And their skulls were shattered by the Mighty One at the Temple of Montu. You must remember, you were there?’
Of course I, along with the other Maryannou, had lined up at the foot of the temple steps. At their top the Divine One, the Magnificent Person, slouched on his throne, his protuberant belly and breasts easy to see beneath his
nenes
, the Coat of Glory, Pharaoh in all his magnificence! He wore the blue war-crown of Egypt and sat under a gold, silver-tasselled awning. Next to him on a stool sat Queen Tiye in a cloak of shimmering feathers – the Coat of a Million Colours as it was called. On her head the vulture head-dress was stiff, white plumes either side of the sun disc. Around the imperial couple, in all their glory of gauffered robes, glossy animals’ skins, shawls and kilts, clustered the leading priests, courtiers and army officers. The Magnificent One, throned in judgement and grasping the flail and the rod, was ready to dispense judgement to those who had dared lift their heads against his sandal. From where I stood I had a clear view of the Magnificent One’s sagging cheeks, deepset eyes and pouting lips, which moved incessantly as he tried to soothe the abscesses in his gums.
The courtyard behind us was packed with notables, skins oiled and perfumed, their fragrance mingling with the scents of flower-baskets and jars of burning perfume. They had all come to see judgement dispensed and the blood flow. Trumpets blew, standards were raised and lowered as the Kushite prisoners, arms and hands bound behind them, mouths gagged, were forced up the steps. The Magnificent One rose, grasped his great war-club with its oval-shaped head. The prisoners knelt along the top step. The Magnificent One, assisted by Hotep, moved down the line. He grasped a tuft of hair specially prepared on each prisoner’s head; as he did so, more trumpets blared. The club was swung, skulls were shattered amidst muffled screams and the steps ran with blood as the crowd hailed the might of their Pharaoh. Colonel Perra’s death was being avenged.
‘It’s a pity his corpse,’ Hotep broke into my reverie, ‘and that of the others were never found.’
I recalled that Kushite in the Veiled One’s tent, arm sliced off, blood gushing, body jerking, the guttural whisper crying out those strange Egyptian words:
‘Deret nebeb Ra.’
‘What are you thinking, Mahu?’
‘Nothing,’ I lied. Before I left that tent the Veiled One had sworn me to silence. I studied the cunning face of this hollow-eyed patrician. ‘Did you come out especially to show me your goblet?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘So what do you want with me?’
‘My thoughts exactly,’ Hotep replied. ‘What are we to do with Mahu, Baboon of the South? The army, the writing office? What about the House of Secrets?’ He passed the cup from hand to hand. He was about to continue when the silence was broken by more cries of pleasure.
‘Huy has slaked his thirst for soft flesh.’ Hotep glanced at me. ‘And how will we slake your ambitions, Mahu?’ He wagged a finger in my face. ‘But come, let’s return, the formal addresses have to be given. Huy!’ he called into the darkness. ‘Your host awaits you.’
We returned to the stuffy perfumed eating-house. Huy, all dishevelled, staggered in to be greeted by jeers except from Maya who glared at him like a jealous girl. Horemheb, festooned with his honours, rose to his feet, banging the rim of his goblet on the table. He held his cup towards Hotep and the two Princes.
‘May the grace of Amun be in your hearts,’ he intoned. ‘May he grant you all a happy old age and that you pass your life in joy and honour, your lips healthy, your limbs strong.’
I saw the Veiled One pull a face.
‘Let your eyes be keen,’ Horemheb continued, ‘your raiment of the finest linen. May you ride in a chariot, a gold-handled whip in your hands, drawn by colts from Syria whilst slaves run before you to clear your way …’
On and on Horemheb prattled.
‘May your scent-maker spread over you the odour of sweet resin and your chief gardener offer you garlands. May you remain secure whilst your enemies are brought low. The evil men impute to you does not exist. You speak with true voice and are honoured among the gods.’
Horemheb then raised his goblet in toast and all followed suit. Hotep delivered a pretty reply. Toasts were drunk, after which God’s Father rose and, followed by a rather drunk Tuthmosis, one arm over his enigmatic brother’s shoulder, made his farewell to the men. For a while the girls entertained us and a blind harpist sang a sad song:
‘Men’s bodies have returned to the earth since the beginning of time and their place taken by fresh generations.
As long as Ra rises each morning so long will men beget and women conceive and through their nostrils they will breathe.
But, one day, each one that is born must go to his appointed place so let’s make it a happy day.
May we be granted the finest of perfumes, lilies and garlands to bedeck our shoulders. Let us be true of voice …’
We cheered the singer to the roof then he, the hesets and the musicians were all dismissed with gifts and assurances of friendship. The children of the Kap, the Unit of Horus the Glorious, were alone for the last time. We sat in silence for a while, each recalling the passing time, invoking memories of our first days there. Meryre led the recitation of past events and we were on the brink of becoming maudlin when Rameses banged his dagger against the wall.
‘The wager was offered,’ he shouted, his snake-eyes glittering with malice. ‘The wager was offered. Has it been taken?’
Horemheb was smiling. I could have cursed both of them. In their eyes Sobeck was a rival, a man as warlike and brave as both of them, which is why Rameses had baited the trap.
‘Well, have you?’ Huy glared blearily down the room at Sobeck. I glanced at my companion. He thrust Maya away and fumbled in a leather bag concealed beneath the table. He scrambled to his feet and held up a statue of pure alabaster on a gold and silver base.
‘The statue of Ishtar,’ he bawled.
Horemheb and Rameses clapped.
‘I have won the wager,’ Sobeck boasted.
I closed my eyes. Sobeck had returned from The Cauldron eager for perfumed flesh and to renew his acquaintance with Neithas, one of the lesser concubines in the imperial harem but still one of the Royal Ornaments, forbidden even to be touched by another man. One night, shortly after our return from the war, Sobeck had boasted about the favours Neithas had granted, and regaled us with stories about the Magnificent One’s sexual appetite. How sometimes he liked to be beaten and whipped or taken in the mouth. We had listened greedily to the lurid stories of the harem and the Magnificent One’s private pleasures. Rameses had then sprung his trap. He accused Sobeck of lying and taunted him to produce proof. Now I knew Sobeck met Neithas in the olive grove where Weni used to slurp his beer, nevertheless I kept silent as Sobeck protested about his prowess and said that he spoke with true voice. Rameses, however, refused to be mollified: he accused Sobeck of lying, provoking him to prove his conquest. Sobeck had agreed. He promised that one of the precious statues of Ishtar, kept in wall niches either side of the doorway to the Royal Harem would be his. Only a Royal Ornament, a concubine of the Magnificent One, was allowed to hold these.
‘Well, Rameses?’ Sobeck shouted. ‘I have the statue and each of you must provide me with a horse, that was the wager. I promised I would show you tonight and so I have!’
We all nodded in agreement, yet Huy, Meryre and Pentju, drunk as they were, realised how dangerous this conversation had become.
‘We didn’t think you’d do it,’ Rameses purred like a cat. ‘We thought you were only joking.’
Maya, one hand on Sobeck’s knee, was staring up at him.
‘Aren’t you jealous, Maya?’ Horemheb called.
Maya leaped to his feet and ran crying into the darkness followed by cat-calls and jeers. Sobeck, carrying the statue, followed whilst the rest of us returned to our drinking.
I slept late into the following day, well past noon and woke to find the dormitory empty. My companions had either risen early or returned to their own homes in the city. I shaved and bathed, going out to sit on Weni’s bench in the courtyard. The rest of the Residence was deserted. My throat was dry so I drew a pot of spring water from the well. I sat in the shade wetting my throat and hoping the pain in my head would go. The events of last night’s banquet came and went but I was really trying to recall that beautiful face. I was in the Valley of Ghosts, memories clustered all around me. Weni cradling his beer jug, the priests armed with their sticks, watching us write. Horemheb and Rameses as close as twins, heads together. In the past I had chosen to be alone, an hour here or a day there, but now I was alone because I was by myself, lonely, bereft of friends and family. I thought of going down to the city, to visit the Mistresses of the Temples, but the previous evening’s celebrations had provided enough excitement.
I kept recalling the Beautiful Woman. I wanted to see her again, gaze on her smile, rejoice in her presence, listen to her voice. I felt no embarrassment. I was more pleased not only because of what I had seen but because of what I felt. The others in the Kap used to ask me if I had a heart, and that always recalled the chilling words of the fortune-teller about Aunt Isithia. I remembered my father striding in and out without a second glance for me. Was I cut from the same wedge? A man with no feeling? The Woman of Beauty had changed all that. I spent that entire day in the Residence sleeping or wandering around. One or two servants came to clear up and move things in or out. They provided me with a little food. I was very concerned that none of the others had returned, though when I checked, the coffers and chests were empty. They had taken everything with them, leaving no trace of their long stay.
The day dragged on. I was sunning myself against the wall when the conch horn wailed, followed by the creak of wheels and the lowing of oxen beyond the walls. I slipped on a robe and quietly left, not through the main gate but a side entrance. I kept to the trees which lined the path down to the olive grove – what I always called Weni’s place. Perhaps it was my military training, those long searing weeks out in The Cauldron, but I sensed danger so I kept in the shadows.
As I waited and watched, a sombre procession came into view. I turned cold with fear at the sight of the executioner of Thebes, a jackal mask over his face, the
nafdet
, the symbol of office over his shoulder, a long black pole with a gleaming axe-head. He was dressed in a red leather jerkin with kilt and boots of the same colour. I had glimpsed him before on my rare visits to the city when the Jackal Man, as they called him, carried out Pharaoh’s justice along the quayside near the Great Mooring Place. Behind him trooped a line of acolytes, similarly dressed. A frightened, wizened lector priest gabbled out prayers. Two carts, guarded by Libyan mercenaries in black animal skins, grotesque masks over their faces, came next. Each cart bore a stout wooden cage. In the first a young, dark-skinned woman, naked but for a leather skirt, crouched in terror, hands bound before her, a gag in her mouth, eyes bright with fright. In the second cage prowled a large feral cat, thin-ribbed but vicious and snarling with hunger. On the first cage was pinned a scrawled notice:
Neithas, Adulteress, Traitor
.