An Evil Spirit Out of the West (Ancient Egyptian Mysteries) (12 page)

Read An Evil Spirit Out of the West (Ancient Egyptian Mysteries) Online

Authors: Paul Doherty

Chapter 5
‘Beyond the Far Horizon
Your beauty has dwelt for all eternity.
Incomparable in form!
Shrouded in mystery!
Yet beautiful in all your aspects.’
The Veiled One finished his prayer kneeling in the garden pavilion, face towards the rising sun. In one hand he held a water flower, in the other, swathed in a piece of linen, a pot of burning incense. His mother knelt beside him, her hands outstretched. I was not too sure to whom we were praying or why, yet I followed suit. The garden was empty, the air slightly cold, the mist tendrils still curling like white wraiths through the trees. The haze shrouding the sun had yet to part. Soon it would be New Year. Sirius the dog star would rise high in the eastern sky, the Ibis birds would flock back to the Black Lands and the Inundation would begin. Once again, the Nile would sweep from its mysterious source in the South to refresh the earth. Yet that day was my New Year’s Day, a moment when my life changed.
The Veiled One finished his hymn, bowed and placed the incense bowl on the ground, the flower beside it. He leaned back, chatting softly to his mother. On the small table before us were three goblets of wine and soft bread smeared lightly with eating salt. A strange meal to begin the day but, there again, I was confused. In truth, I was only half awake. I had almost been kicked out of my bed by Imri when the dormitory was still dark and cold. I thought it was connected to the previous day’s occurrence, that Hotep had changed his mind and I was to be arrested as Sobeck’s accomplice. The Kushite, however, gestured at the jug of water, bowl and napkin he had brought.
‘Come, Baboon,’ he commanded, grinning over his shoulder at the other Kushites thronging in the doorway. ‘Our master and the Great Queen want words with you.’
I had washed and dressed, carefully following the Veiled One’s guard back through the dark garden and into the Silent Pavilion.
‘Do you know who you are praying to?’ Tiye broke into my reverie. ‘Mahu, look at me.’
I went to bow again but she snapped her fingers. ‘Look at me, man.’
‘I gaze upon your face, Divine One.’
‘I am sure you do,’ she smiled wryly. ‘But this is not the place for court niceties or polite pleasantries. God’s Father Hotep has recommended that you join the Medjay and you are not happy with that.’ She looked more closely at me. ‘Your eyes are heavy. You drank deeply last night?’
‘To the very dregs, Excellency.’
The Veiled One laughed quietly.
‘No wonder. Out in the Western Desert,’ Tiye continued, ‘your skin will be burned black by the sun, you’ll be blinded by the heat, eat sand and dust and live for the next stoup of water. You are not a happy man, Mahu.’
‘Your Excellency is most perceptive.’
Tiye joined in her son’s laughter. ‘Well, you are not to go! I have made my will known. The Divine One supports me. You are to join my son’s household.’ She smiled at my surprise. ‘My son has told me all about you, Mahu, Baboon of the South. You were born alone and grew alone, yet you have demonstrated your loyalty. My son owes his life to you whilst your assistance of Sobeck is praiseworthy.’
‘
Did
you dream that night?’ the Veiled One demanded. He was sitting between myself and his mother. Now he leaned forward, his cold, clawlike fingers squeezing the muscles on my face.
‘I did not dream.’
‘Good.’ He kissed me gently on the cheek. ‘You must never lie to me, Mahu.’
‘Your father was a soldier,’ Lady Tiye continued, ‘a brave one. You shall be my son’s soldier: his life and his health will be your sole concern.’
‘Is his life under threat?’
‘Good, good!’ the Veiled One murmured. ‘That’s the way to begin, Mahu. Ask questions but keep the answers to yourself.’ He glanced sideways at me and winked.
‘Is my son’s life threatened?’ Tiye repeated the question. Her lower lip jutted out and she played with the simple veil which covered her rich black hair. Tiye’s face was unpainted except for kohl rings around her eyes and a light layer of carmine on her lips. She’d piled her jewellery on a small garden table just near the door. ‘Everyone who shelters in the shadow of the Divine One is threatened. Now, to my former question, to whom did we pray?’
‘To Amun-Ra?’
She shook her head. ‘To the Sun?’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘To the Aten, the Sun Disc? Yes and no. More precisely, to the power which raises that sun and sets it, which sends forth the cooling breeze, allows the bud to flower, and the chick in the egg to stir.’
I remained impassive. Theology, the word of the gods, was of little concern to me. I was more intrigued by Queen Tiye’s face in the vain hope that I might meet the Beautiful One again, rather than the strange events now occurring.
‘Will you take the oath?’ Tiye continued. ‘By that power, by earth and sky, by fire and water, to be my son’s man in peace and war? Will you?’
‘Yes, Your Excellency.’
‘Good.’ She lifted the wine cup and thrust it into my hands. Picking up a piece of salted bread, she broke it into three and handed a piece to me and to her son. The rest she popped into her own mouth, chewing it quietly, her gaze never leaving me. The Veiled One and I followed suit. The bread was soft but the salt was hard and bitter and I had difficulty swallowing it. I then sipped the wine, full and strong, rich as blood.
‘You have eaten the salt and drunk the wine,’ Tiye declared. ‘You have taken the oath. Life and death, Mahu. Every time you eat bread and drink wine it will commemorate this occasion.’
Outside I heard a servant call. A horn wailed as a sign that the day had officially begun. Tiye rose and left and so it was that my life was woven into the life of the Veiled One. I was his bodyguard, his manservant, sometimes his friend and, when his moods shifted, even his opponent, someone to argue with, as well as to lecture, warn and instruct. I soon slipped into the regular routine of his household. I’d rise in the morning and join the Veiled One at his prayers, followed by meetings with different officials and flunkies of the court. I was given my own chambers in the far side of the Silent Pavilion, with washed-green walls and a small storeroom beside it.
The daily routine of the household was soothing. Sometimes I thought about Sobeck and, now and again, wondered if the beautiful woman would return. Great Queen Tiye and Prince Tuthmosis were frequent visitors and sometimes, at least once a week, God’s Father Hotep came. The latter had accepted me. He’d smile and nod, sometimes he’d draw me into superficial conversation about affairs in Thebes or visitors from abroad. He’d inform me how Horemheb and Rameses were now Captains in the Sacred Band, how Pentju and Meryre promised their worth in the House of Life whilst Huy and Maya were proving to be excellent scribes. Tuthmosis ignored me as if I did not exist. On one occasion when he met his brother alone in the small audience hall he asked that I stand outside. The Veiled One shrugged and told me to wait in the garden. For the rest, I was always close to him. He would eat before noon, rest during the heat of the day and then spend his time in a range of different studies, hobbies and pursuits.
Occasionally, mysterious visitors would arrive. They’d be garbed in striped robes, coarse garments and heavy sandals; they looked like Sand Dwellers with their long hair and beards though they lacked their shifty gaze and furtive ways. They were warriors with sharp-nosed, haughty faces who swaggered rather than walked and only reluctantly handed over their weapons to Imri’s keeping. Why they came or what they discussed was kept secret. The Veiled One was very cunning. He always met such visitors at the far end of his audience hall or out in the garden pavilion where eavesdroppers would find it difficult to lurk. These men would come and squat before the Veiled One, talking softly, gesturing with their hands, always treating him with the greatest respect. Great Queen Tiye would often join such meetings and sometimes, at night, she and her son went out to meet these strange ones beyond the gates. I’d go with them, Tiye and the Veiled One shrouded in cloaks and hoods. The strangers would be waiting, hoods pulled over their own heads. They were always armed, one or two carrying pitch torches. They’d leave, slipping quietly through the darkness, both my master and his mother returning shortly after dawn. No one from the Silent Pavilion was ever allowed to accompany them. I’d established a good relationship with Imri and often practised with him on the drill ground. Over a beer jug I asked about these mysterious visitors. The Kushite pressed a calloused finger against my lips.
‘You may ask, Mahu, but never expect an answer. I know very little of them except that they are Apiru, a tribe of the Shemshu.’
‘Apiru?’
‘Hush!’ Again the finger against my lips. He nudged me gently, got to his feet and strolled away.
The Apiru were no strangers to me. They were not desert people but nomadic tribes who’d wandered across Sinai following the Horus roads past the silver mines. They’d been allowed to enter Egypt and suckle at her fertile breasts. Some joined the army, others became craftsmen; they were Egyptian in everything but name. Others kept to themselves, living away from the cities, only visiting them to barter and haggle in the marketplace. I wondered what they would have in common with my master and with Egypt’s Great Queen, yet Imri was correct. The danger of such a question lurked not so much in asking it, but in searching for the answers.
For the rest, the Veiled One immersed himself in his activities. He loved painting and sculpture, and two of Tiye’s master craftsmen, the painter Bek and the sculptor Uti, were frequent visitors to the house. The Veiled One had taken over and converted a high-ceilinged storeroom, transforming this into what he called his ‘House of Paintings’. I often joined him there. Sometimes Bek painted on screens, other times the walls, but only after the Veiled One had given his approval. Most of the paintings were similar to those found in temples, palaces or tombs, executed in vivid colours, light blues, dark greens, rich yellows: garden scenes, a hunter boating along the Nile, a hawk plunging on its quarry or an athlete about to throw a stick. The gods did not appear in them, however, nor did the Pharaoh or, indeed, the imperial court. Other paintings were more dramatic and vivid, different from any I had ever seen. Bek and Uti were related; in fact, they looked like twins, small men with round smiling faces, totally immersed in their art, ever ready to please. They were a little shamefaced about these new paintings, but listened patiently as the Veiled One enthused over their realism.
‘We must live in the truth,’ my master announced proudly, displaying the images of himself painted on the wall.
Bek and Uti had followed his instructions scrupulously and, rather than disguise his physical imperfections and deformities, they exaggerated them. The Veiled One was portrayed in a striped blue and gold head-dress, and a gloriously coloured kilt, with a sash round his waist, his face and jaw were portrayed as much longer than in real life, the sensuous lips more full, the eyes sharper and more elongated, his chest and belly more protuberant, his hips wider. ‘The truth?’ The Veiled One repeated, and gestured with his fingers. ‘If life is truth and paintings reflect life, then they should be truthful. Well, Mahu, what do you think?’
‘Has your father seen them?’
The question was a mistake. The Veiled One spun on his heel and strode out of the House of Paintings. Bek and Uti stood, heads down, as if they were war-prisoners.
‘Never,’ Bek whispered, ‘ever mention his father again.’ He raised his gentle face, eyes screwed up. ‘You are most fortunate, Mahu. I have heard of others being struck with a sharp-edged cane for saying less.’
‘
Does
his father know of these paintings?’ I refused to be abashed. I had not intended to give offence and I was angry at being treated so unfairly.
‘No one knows of them except us and Great Queen Tiye.’ Bek laughed sharply. ‘If we exhibited these in the temples and palaces we would be the laughing stock of Thebes.’
The Veiled One soon forgave me. He was always busy and, as Bek and Uti had once confided, passed from one thing to another like a butterfly in the garden. He would invite the two artists down, question them, work them like slaves, then reward them with banquets and a stack of gifts, only to forget them for a month. He’d become interested in shrubs, tending the herb plots or using plants to make stoppers for wine jars, chaff glued together or a parcel of young sycamore leaves. He would fashion candles and elaborate oil lamps. He would spend an entire afternoon making floral garlands out of the fibre of palm leaves, lotus petals and willow leaves. He’d experiment with the destruction of a snake’s nest by leaving dried fish, lumps of natron or even an onion at its entrance. Occasionally he would call the housekeepers together and lecture them on the use of fleabane mixed with charcoal to drive away flies or the way to mix frankincense and myrrh, mingled with boiled honey, to give the kitchens and storerooms a pleasing fragrance. He was fascinated by animals, particularly the cats, which roamed through the storerooms ever vigilant against vermin. I once found him outside the kitchens dissecting a mouse’s corpse, taking out the small organs and laying them on the paving. He glanced up as I approached.

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