An Evil Spirit Out of the West (Ancient Egyptian Mysteries) (31 page)

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

Authors: Paul Doherty

‘But you can’t.’
Horemheb drew his sword.
‘What other way is there to convince the Prince?’ I hissed, my voice echoing along the cavernous passageway. ‘I am his servant – he will trust me.’
Shishnak closed his eyes, fighting with himself.
‘It’s the only way,’ Horemheb repeated.
Shishnak opened his eyes, then, grasping me by the arm and telling Horemheb to stay, he led me back into the Hall of Columns. Two acolytes escorted us through the gloomy hall past statues and carvings, shrines and chapels to the great gold-plated doors of the Holy of Holies which shimmered in the light of torches held by the officers gathered there. One of the acolytes whispered instructions. The doors opened. I ignored the exclamations and cries of the guards and priests clustered behind me and strode straight into that cold, empty tomb of a room. The great tabernacle stood on its stone daïs, the open doors displaying the gold-plated figure of Amun, the Silent One, the God Who-Watches-All. Before it were small slabs of stone on which the offerings and flower baskets were placed: these had been violently disturbed. The floor was strewn with gold plate, goblets and jugs, slabs of meat, loaves of bread, fruit of every kind. I walked slowly, almost slipping as my foot crushed a bunch of juicy grapes. The air reeked with sweet and sour smells of natron, incense, cassia and the cloying smell of myrrh. A haunted place of shifting shadows. One of these moved from behind a pillar. My master entered the ring of torchlight, his robes stained, cut and torn, but he had regained his composure.
‘Mahu. It’s good to see you.’
I stretched out my hands. ‘Master, we are to escort you home. You are safe.’
Akhenaten strode towards me, his cane rapping the ground.
He kicked aside platters and grasped my hand. ‘Mahu, let us go. Let’s leave this abode of demons.’
Chapter 12
‘It springs for thee,
The rising of the Nile.
The water of life.
It grows for thee,
That which comes from the water,
The rich black lands of Egypt.
The sky burns for thee,
The land trembles for thee,
Thy feet are nosed by pure water.
The King is prosperous!
The palace flourishes!
The month is born!
The land is covered.
The barley grows!’
Meryre’s sonorous voice carried the hymn throughout the chamber. Dressed in white drapery, he acted the role of lector priest before the Royal Circle in the great Council Chamber next to the Banqueting Hall at the heart of the Malkata Palace. I was there, forced to listen to his nonsense. I kept my face straight as I tried not to recall Meryre, arse naked, being chased like a squirrel by the rest of the children of the Kap across the marshy shallows of the Nile.
It was supposed to be a sacred occasion. Akhenaten sat on a daïs shaped like a shrine with a stucco pillar on either side painted blue and green with golden ivy clinging to it. The top of these columns were blood-red acanthus leaves, their base yellow palm fronds rimmed with silver. Along the top of the daïs was a serried row of cobras, gilded green-gold and black with sparkling angry ruby eyes, glaring threateningly out at us. The rest of the chamber was painted a cobalt blue, the Magnificent One’s favourite colour, except for the pillars, carved in the shape of thick papyrus stems, which glowed a vibrant green and yellow.
The stone floor of light blue was smooth and polished as water. At either end of the chamber, rectangular Pools of Purity edged with red tiles glistened in the glow of oil lamps. On the surface of these pools floated blue and white lotus, their sweetness mingling with the sponges soaked in perfume placed in pots in shadowy corners and niches. The windows were unshuttered and, like the doors, their lintels were of precious wood, lapis lazuli and glittering stones. Outside stretched the gardens, the paradise of the palace, lush and verdant. From where I stood behind my master, I could hear the braying and bleating of the sacred flocks.
Akhenaten was dressed in state costume: short drawers of pleated gauze ornamented at the back with a jackal’s tail and, in the front, a stiffened apron of gold and coloured enamel; a large robe of the purest linen draped his shoulders. On his feet were peaked sandals and over his head a beautiful cloth of gold striped white and red. A pectoral of the purest jewels carved in the shape of the Vulture Goddess Nekhbet hung round his neck, rings of office decorated his fingers and in his hand was a golden
ankh
, the sign of life. I had watched his face being painted and embellished before the Royal Circle met; the dark kohl rings round his eyes contrasted with the flesh-coloured paint on his face and his carmine-daubed lips. Across the Royal Circle sat Hotep in his white robes and gleaming chains of office. The Magnificent One’s close friend and First Minister kept his face impassive though when he stared at me, cynical amusement glinted in his eyes. Great Queen Tiye sat on Akhenaten’s right, Nefertiti on his left, her abdomen now bulging out, straining against the loose thin robe. Ay, holder of the Divine seal, sat next to her.
Everyone was lost in their own thoughts as Meryre’s voice rose and fell. In the ninety days following Tuthmosis’ death, matters had moved as swiftly as a swallow racing against the sky. The Divine One, stricken by the death of his firstborn, had sunk deeper into a stupor of drugged pleasure, or so Ay had informed me. Great Queen Tiye had also aged: grey-faced, shoulders slightly stooped even though her beloved son had now not only been recognised by the Palace but proclaimed as the Magnificent One’s Co-regent, joint ruler, Beloved of Amun, Horus in the South.
My master had certainly changed. The events in the Temple of Amun-Ra remained hidden. The few details I had gleaned were that he and Tuthmosis had been worshipping in the Holy of Holies when Akhenaten had started to ridicule what he termed ‘the empty charade of the priests’. Tuthmosis, angry at such blasphemy, had clashed with him and withdrawn.
‘He left me to laugh,’ Akhenaten declared as he squatted in the garden pavilion dressed in his robes of mourning, ash staining his head and brow. ‘Mahu, I was laughing at the little statue in its cupboard. I told him I’d pick it up and walk away.’ Akhenaten squinted at the lotus he held. ‘Then the shaven heads came back. They said my brother had fallen seriously ill. I stopped laughing. I thought it was a plot to draw me out so I refused to leave’ – he smiled – ‘until you came. How did you learn about it? Mother is as enigmatic as ever.’
I told him about Maya. He nodded, thrust the lotus in my hand, rose and left. I never had time to voice my own suspicions. The time was not ripe. I had no proof but there was something about those two chambers in the Temple of Amun-Ra which jarred my memory; something amiss, out of place. It was like trying to recall a dream, the details always evading me. Oh, of course, everyone was thanked. Horemheb and Rameses were promoted to the Maryannou, members of the crack royal corps known as the ‘Braves of the King’. Huy became Chief Scribe in the House of Envoys, Pentju, Royal Physician with the right to wear the panther skin and the Ring of Light as well as carry the Staff of Life. Meryre was confirmed as Principal Chapel Priest, Chaplain to the Royal Household and Lector Priest to the Imperial Royal Circle. Ay had really come into his own: he was given, amongst others, the titles of Pharaoh’s Close Friend, God’s Father, Principal Councillor, Chief of Scribes, Keeper of the Seals. Maya, of course, would have to wait. And for Mahu? Ah well, Mahu received nothing but caskets of precious stones and a close embrace from both Akhenaten and Nefertiti, reward enough, together with the title of Keeper of the Keys. In other words, I was Akhenaten’s personal bodyguard.
Crown Prince Tuthmosis’ corpse had been taken across to the Necropolis to be dressed and moved to his father’s royal mausoleum where the Keeper of the Secrets of Anubis had bathed his young body in natron, packed it with perfume and adorned it with exquisite jewels. The Hope of Egypt had been wrapped in the purest linen, gently placed in his nest of gold coffins and laid to rest. Egypt had mourned, observing the seventy days’ ritual when the young Prince’s Ka travelled into the Eternal West. Courtiers and officials rent their robes, strewed ash on their heads and faces, wailed and keened in mourning.
At last the funeral obsequies were over. Life in the city and in the palace along the Nile continued though Great Queen Tiye had been busy. Ten days after Crown Prince Tuthmosis had been sealed in his coffins, my master, under his first name Amenhotep, was proclaimed Co-regent in the Hall of the Great Feast of the Royal Diadem at Karnak. Nefertiti had given him the strictest lectures so he behaved himself beautifully. He had allowed the priests to sprinkle him with holy water, consecrate him with the sacred oils and clothe him in the royal robes which clung around him like some beautiful mist. This time there was no murmured laughter or mockery at Akhenaten’s ungainly body and awkward gait. The crook, the flail and the
ankh
were pressed into his hands. Priests wearing the masks of hawks, rams, greyhounds and jackals clustered about anointing him, blessing him with incense as the great Double Crown, with its Uraeus head-band, was lowered on his head. Shishnak himself, scowling in the Royal Circle, had to proclaim the words on behalf of his god, the great Amun-Ra.
‘I have established thy dignity as the King of the North and as the King of the South.
Oh my Son, Lord of the Two Crowns,
I bind the lotus and the papyrus for thee.’
Afterwards Akhenaten had processed solemnly to the Great Room of the Royal Rising and Divine Embrace. He had broken the holy clay seals of the naos and adored the sacred statue surmounted with its ostrich feathers and enamel eyes glowing fiercely out at this new Pharaoh of Egypt who, as he secretly confessed later to me, would have liked to have smashed it to dust with a mallet.
Akhenaten was now Master of Egypt. He sensed it, he felt it and so he had changed. He brimmed with quiet confidence, a slumbering majesty which pervaded all his movements and gestures, voice and words. He watched everything with amused eyes and a cynical smile, yet remained tactful and discreet. Nefertiti was the same. She had not been proclaimed as Queen, not yet, but her hour had come. She was the Great Wife, mother-to-be of Pharaoh’s children, Mistress of the House, Lady of the Palace. If her hour had come, so had Ay’s. The only obstacle, a counter-balance to the influence of his son, was the confirmation by the Magnificent One of his close friend, Hotep, as First Minister. All matters had to be decided jointly with him. Queen Tiye had urged her son to co-operate fully with this powerful courtier as well as with the other dignitaries, generals, priests and nobles, the ‘Sheneiu, People of the Royal Circle’, or the ‘Quenbetiu, the Royal Corner’. All these men bore the title of ‘Sole Friends of the King’, ‘Lords of the Secrets of the Royal House’, ‘Lords of the Secrets of all the Royal Sayings’, ‘Lords of the Secrets of Heaven’. Fan-bearers and dignitaries rejoicing in their glorious titles, these represented the real power of Egypt.
In the middle of the council chamber squatted scribes from the Purple Chamber of the House of Secrets, writing trays across their laps, ready to catch the words of Pharaoh’s friends. Each member of the Royal Circle was allowed one retainer in the chamber. I was Akhenaten’s and Nefertiti’s. I was amused that Hotep had chosen Maya, who seemed discomfited, shuffling now and again, moving from one foot to the other. At last Meryre’s boring chant died away. Akhenaten immediately moved to establish his authority.
‘I wish,’ he intoned, face all solemn, ‘to quarry stone at Silsila to build a temple to Re-Herakhty, the Aten. As you know,’ he warmed to his lecture, ‘Re-Herakhty is a manifestation of the Sun God: a man with a falcon’s head crowned with the Disc of the Sun and encircled by the Uraeus.’
Shishnak coughed, a gesture of quiet contempt for this lecture. Akhenaten ignored him.
‘My Father,’ he continued, ‘my
Father
,’ he emphasised, ‘has revealed to me a new manifestation – no longer the symbol of a man with the hawk’s head, only the Sun Disc itself encircled by the Uraeus with a pendant
ankh
sending forth rays of light. I saw this in a dream. At the end of each ray of light was a hand which blessed me and mine! My Father is determined on this. I have shared my dream with the Overseer of Works: stone will be quarried and my temple to the Sun Disc, the Glorious Aten, will be built at Karnak. This is my wish, my will shall be done!’

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