Akhenaten bowed, followed by Nefertiti and Ay, pressing their heads against the ground. The Sun Disc broke free, clear of the mountains, and rose against the sky, transforming the earth and the air in a blaze of light and glory. Then Akhenaten stood, a beatific smile on his face.
‘Go down to the waterside, Mahu,’ he urged. ‘Tell the others they can now come ashore.’
I did so. The crew of the
Dazzling Aten
, followed by Horemheb, Rameses and their soldiers clambered ashore. My two companions were angry but their anger was tinged with a sharp curiosity. They had witnessed the drama of the sunrise and bothered me with questions. Why was this place sacred?
‘I don’t know,’ I told them.
‘Are you sure?’ Rameses persisted. ‘There must be few places in the Eastern Desert where the sun rises so dramatically.’
I shook my head and walked away.
‘They are curious, aren’t they?’ Ay came up, still hunched against the cold, a shawl across his shoulders.
‘Never mind them,’ I snapped. ‘
I’m
curious.’
‘This is a sacred place.’ Ay stared at me from under heavy-lidded eyes.
‘I know that. I’m not a child – the sunrise is most dramatic.’
‘When our people first came to Egypt,’ Ay stroked his reddish hair, ‘they assembled here and built their altars to the Unseen God.’
‘Why here?’
‘Because, according to legend, this was once the dazzling garden, the place where God and Man met.’
‘And now it’s just a desert,’ I replied.
‘Look for yourself, Mahu.’
I did so, wandering across the plain, and soon realised that its aridity was only superficial. In clefts and gullies, I discovered underground water streams and untapped wells, their presence only visible in the quickly drying water as the day progressed. Behind me servants were carrying up stores and setting up tents. Hunters were sent out to bring fresh meat; two of these returned at a run shouting and waving their arms.
Horemheb was sitting by the campfire deep in conversation with the two dwarves. Rameses was testing water from one of the barrels. Akhenaten and Nefertiti had withdrawn to their pavilion. Ay was aboard the
Dazzling Aten
. The way the hunters hastened towards us proclaimed that something extraordinary had happened. If it was an attack by Desert Wanderers and Sand Dwellers they would have raised the alarm. These two stopped, fighting for breath, bodies drenched in sweat.
‘You must come,’ they gasped, pointing back towards the rocky escarpment, ravines and gullies which marked the beginning of the limestone cliffs. ‘You must come silently.’
Ay came ashore, scratching his jaw. Akhenaten and Nefertiti left their pavilion, wrapping their robes about them. Horemheb had already slung his bow, Rameses was shouting for the marines.
‘It’s not like that,’ one of the hunters said.
‘Well, what is it?’ Ay demanded.
‘No, I cannot describe it,’ the other replied. ‘Master, you must come!’
Akhenaten and Nefertiti put on their sandals. Horemheb and Rameses, followed by Ay and myself, left the camp with the hunters. The day was blazing hot, and a stiff breeze from the river wafted gusts of sand and dirt, toasting our eyes and coating our lips. By the time we had reached the line of boulders, all of us were drenched in sweat. The hunters gestured to us to be silent as we climbed the shale, sandalled feet slipping. We reached the top, more boulders; the ground fell away between two rocky outcrops. It led to what looked like a dried-out water hollow, ringed by straggly bushes and brambles clinging to the thin soil. The hunters moved slowly. We passed the corpses of quails slain earlier. They led us up to a barrier of rock and rubble. We peered over this down to the hollow.
At first I could see nothing but then, beneath a large bramble bush, I glimpsed movement. A lioness lay there, a great tawny-skinned beast, body stretched out, tail moving, her great forepaws spread out before her. Between them lay a baby gazelle which rose, stumbling, yet it kept its feet. The gazelle moved round the lioness; it cropped at a tuft of grass, then came back and settled down as if it was the lioness’s cub. The lioness did not kill or menace it but treated it gently, nuzzling and licking it carefully. I gazed in astonishment. The lioness was a powerful beast, yet she treated that gazelle as tenderly as any cub. Great cats play with their victims, like a house cat with a mouse, but this was not the case.
We all, even Horemheb and Rameses, gazed speechlessly at the scene. Nefertiti’s face had never looked more beautiful; she was radiant, her eyes glowing. The walk and climb had made her hot – I could smell her perfume. I watched the delicious drops of sweat snake down the golden skin of her face. Akhenaten crouched as if beholding a vision. Even the cynical Ay was speechless. All the time I waited, tense, for the lioness to spring, deal that baby gazelle a killing blow or inflict a savage bite to the nape of its neck, but both animals remained content together. At one point the lioness turned, ears twitching, and glanced towards us as if she could see us and gave a threatening growl deep in her throat.
We were about to withdraw when the hunters crouching behind us hissed a warning. Further down the hollow, in the break between the two rocks, a splendidly-maned lion had emerged, walking softly, tail out. The breeze ruffled his powerful mane; muscles rippled along his body as he padded gently down the incline towards the lioness. At first she didn’t notice but then, in a rapid movement which made me jump, she sprang up and turned, belly low to the ground, ears flat, against her head, face transformed into a snarling mask. The lion came on threateningly. The lioness refused to give way, moving towards him, her whole body arched and ready for battle. The lion paused, head going from side to side. The lioness, likewise, and for a while she sat glaring at the newcomer. Then the lion threw back his head and gave a low, coughing roar. The lioness inched forward, ready to spring, while the gazelle crouched gracefully on the ground, unperturbed by the growing menace. At last the confrontation ended. The lion hurriedly backed off, tail twitching and, with as much dignity as he could muster, returned the way he came. The lioness, however, remained crouched until satisfied the threat was gone. She then drew herself up and, jaws open, emitted the most ferocious roar. Tail whisking from side to side, she glared up at the escarpment as if considering what to do with the threat which menaced her from above.
‘We must leave,’ the hunters insisted. ‘She knows of our presence and will tolerate us no further.’
The lioness returned to the baby gazelle, standing over it, licking it, gently reassuring it. Then she lifted her head, those great amber eyes glaring up at us. The hunters were now pleading.
‘We have seen enough,’ Ay whispered and we withdrew.
Akhenaten revelled in what he had seen, striding ahead with Nefertiti almost as if he had forgotten his ungainliness, swinging his cane like a soldier would a sword, one arm round her shoulders, his mouth only a few inches from her ear. Ay, however, questioned the hunters as did Horemheb and Rameses, yet this was no trickery.
‘Have you ever seen that before?’
The elder hunter, a grizzled veteran, shook his head.
‘Never, my lord,’ he replied.
‘You are a Kushite, aren’t you?’ Ay demanded.
‘My mother was. My father was a farmer in the Black Lands.’
‘Have you ever heard of such a story?’ Rameses insisted.
‘I have heard tales about the great cats treating a gazelle like a cub, but until this day I never believed it.’
‘Perhaps it’s true.’ The other hunter gazed round. ‘Perhaps it can be explained. The lioness may have lost her own cubs. She may even have killed the gazelle’s mother and dragged her body away. I have known the young to follow the killer which has taken its mother.’ The hunter hoisted his bow over his shoulder. ‘I forgot to bring the sand quails,’ he smiled. ‘We’ll leave them for the lioness. It was worth the price.’
Later that afternoon we left that strange deserted cove along the Nile. Akhenaten stood in the prow of our barge staring until it disappeared behind rocky outcrops and the thick hedges of palm trees. Once it had disappeared he stood, head bowed, tears trickling down his long furrowed cheeks: he grasped Nefertiti by the hand and they both returned to the cabin amidships.
The news of what we had seen soon spread amongst the crew, only increasing their curiosity about the journey and its destination. Some declared they had seen similar signs. Horemheb and Rameses looked genuinely perplexed. Ay could only shake his head.
‘Some things can be explained,’ he confided, ‘some things cannot. The Prince believes it was a sign and it’s best if we leave it at that.’
Our journey back to Thebes was uneventful. We were distracted by the different sights on both shores as well as the varied life along the river. At dawn and sunset there were the undecked fishing boats with their huge nets; fowlers in their punts, busy along the reedfilled banks. In the cool hours came the pleasure boats bright with their gilding and blue, red and yellow paints which cast vivid reflections on the surface of the shimmering water. We passed Dendera, following the river down past the desert mountain ranges giving way to wide swathes of cultivated land where palm, acacia, fig tree and sycamore thrived. Eventually we glimpsed the silver-and gold-plated tops of the pylons, obelisks, temple cornices and rooftops of Luxor, Thebes and Karnak. We made our way carefully through the different flotillas going up and down the Nile or across to the Necropolis. At last we slipped along our own quayside thronged with servants waiting to greet us.
It seemed strange to be back in the Palace of the Aten. Later that day Akhenaten and Nefertiti invited both Ay and myself to a splendid but private banquet held on the daïs behind thick gauze curtains at the end of the hall of audience. Snefru kept guard and brought the food himself: plates of freshly cooked meat and bread, dishes of vegetables, small pots of sauce, a welcome relief from the hardened bread and dry salted flesh we had eaten on board during most of our journey.
Akhenaten was fascinated by what we had seen. Time and again he returned to the lioness and the gazelle as a sign from his Father that all was well and all would be well. He began to question Ay about the place itself: the building of quaysides, the exploration of wells, how canals could be dug. Akhenaten’s face became flushed, eyes bright as he talked of plans to found a new city, build temples open to the sun. I wondered if Tiye had arranged the journey to distract her son. Or was it what she and her husband intended for this rebel at the imperial court? Was Akhenaten to be banished from the Malkata and the City of the Sceptre to some lonely outpost where he could indulge his own private beliefs? Nefertiti seemed just as enthusiastic. I found it difficult to imagine a woman like herself, not to mention her father Ay, being expelled from the centre of influence and power. The meal was coming to an end when an imperial herald arrived. He was dressed in white, a gold fillet around his head, a white wand in his left hand, a scroll of papyrus in the other. Snefru brought him to the hall of audience. The man knelt before the daïs and handed over the scroll. Ay unfolded this: it bore the crest of the imperial cartouche, Pharaoh’s own seal. Ay studied the contents and looked anxiously at Akhenaten. ‘A summons from your father. Tomorrow afternoon you are to join your brother, the Crown Prince Tuthmosis, in the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak.’
All pleasure faded from Akhenaten’s face. ‘The vigil,’ he whispered under his breath. ‘We are to spend four days before the tabernacle of that hideous demon and pledge our loyalty to the God of Thebes.’ He sat, head back against the wall, eyes glaring, his strange chest rising and falling as if he had been running fast.
Ay ordered the herald to withdraw. Akhenaten’s face grew ghastly, liverish, eyes starting in his head, lips moving but no sound, not a word. Nefertiti tried to calm him but he brushed her hand away. He made to rise but slumped back. He grasped his cane and with one sweep sent the platters and plates, cups and goblets, alabaster oil jars flying from the tables. He rose to a half-crouch, the cane rising and falling, smashing into the acacia wood, cutting deep as if it was a sword, whilst the anger raged in his face; his lips white-flecked, eyes popping, chest heaving. The oiled, perfumed wig he wore became dislodged. Akhenaten threw it at me and, with both hands, smashed the cane up and down, curses tumbling from his lips. Ay stood and watched. Nefertiti flattened herself against the wall, fearful and watchful. At last Akhenaten let go of the cane and, turning sideways, placed his head in his wife’s lap, drawing his knees up like a child, fingers going to his mouth. Nefertiti stroked the side of his face, talking in a language I could not understand, soft gentle words to match the rhythmic movement of her hands. She glanced at Ay and gestured with her head. Ay left the hall and returned, a small goblet of wine in his hands. Snefru still stood by the doorway, transfixed by what he had seen. Ay handed the wine over to Nefertiti who coaxed her husband to drink, making him sit up, holding the cup for him until he grasped it with two hands, drinking greedily, face now slack, a terrifying look in his eyes.
‘Leave,’ Ay whispered to me. ‘Leave and never repeat what you have seen. Take Snefru with you.’
I did so at once, pushing Snefru out into the cold night air, closing the doors behind me.