Nefertiti (34 page)
The last of the light faded to black. The Queen sat outside watching, her arms around her dozing girls, her gold costume dulled and streaked with dust and sand. Senet sat near, frozen despite the heat of the evening. Meretaten was awake, sitting a little apart, staring not at the sunset but at the ground. Her mother glanced across at her, but seemed to decide to leave her alone for now. Akhenaten remained in the tomb chamber, huddled on a pallet in a dark corner.
Khety and I found lamps, and a small supply of twisted wicks.
'They add salt to the oil,' he said, whispering for no reason. Perhaps because we were in the presence of Akhenaten; perhaps because we did not want to hear our own voices in the dead acoustic of the chamber.
'Why's that?'
'To stop the wick smoking and spoiling the ceiling work. Look.' He stepped up a ladder that was leaning against an uncarved column and revealed, in the light of his lamp, a great patterned
pathway of gold stars - the celestial kingdom of the goddess Nut -against the serene indigo of the night. He looked for a moment like a dusty young god among his constellations, swinging a sun gently in his hand, his face touched with a smile of wonder at all he had made. I saw that Akhenaten, too, had turned and was staring up at the old vision of creation on the ceiling.
After a moment of silence, I said to Khety, 'Come down now.'
The glow descended to our mortal level and Khety became him-self again.
'We've only got enough wicks to last a few hours,' I said. 'There's water and some bread, but I can't find anything else.'
Khety inclined his head towards Akhenaten's dark figure, which had turned again from the light to face the dark wall. 'What are we going to do about...?'
I shrugged. I had no idea. It was too big a problem for me to solve.
'Bring me some water,' called Akhenaten from the shadows.
I took him a cup, and had to help him to sit up to drink from it, like an invalid. Something had snapped inside him. He was light and frail. He drank with little tentative sips.
'We must return to the city immediately,' he said suddenly, as if the thought had just occurred to him. His eyes, in the dark, looked haunted, as if he already knew this would not be possible, and that this knowledge of his powerlessness made it more urgent still. He struggled up, propping himself on his beautiful ceremonial staff. 'I insist we return
immediately.'
Suddenly Nefertiti was beside him, talking quietly, persuading him to lie back down, making him comfortable. I moved away. There was something both intimate and dreadful about the way she calmed him, and the look of something like loathing hovered faintly in his eyes.
The girls were all lying on pallets now. Meretaten was staring at the scene of her mother and father carved on the wall beside her. She had a strange look on her face. 'That's me,' she said, pointing at the largest of the smaller figures gathered at the feet of the King and his Queen in the Window of Appearances to receive the blessing of the Ankh of Life. Then she looked across at the very different scene of her mother trying to calm and restrain her father. Suddenly she looked older and wiser, as if she understood too much too soon of the casual, lazy brutality of this battered world. I hoped my girls would never look like that.
'We're not going home, are we?' she said quietly.
'I don't know.'
Yes you do. Everything's going to change now.' She spoke with all the fierce candour of an angry child. Then she turned haughtily away from me.
She is right, I thought as I looked at her, a child with the weight of the world upon her hunched shoulders.
I stood up. In the light of the lamps placed around the chamber the scene looked like a picture from a story. But this was no picture-book story. Where could we really go from here? The best we could do was try to hold out. But I no longer rated our chances. I went outside to try to think, and to keep watch. Khety was perched in a dark niche of the cliff, on guard. Nefertiti joined me, and we looked down over the plain spreading west and south to the city. In the clear night air we could see hundreds of tiny night-lights - sentries and soldiers congregating at the roadblocks. We als
o saw chains of lights approach
ing, gathering and spilling around them, heading for the passes out of the city's territory and into the surrounding desert.
'I don't know whether it would be better to move on from here by night or by day,' I said.
She did not reply. Had she heard me? I glanced at her. Silence extended like a great distance between us, although we were no more than a few cubits apart. I looked up at the great imperishable stars.
Then she spoke:
'The land is in darkness as if in death.
They sleep in their chambers, heads covered.
One eye cannot see the other.
Were they robbed of all their earthly goods
- even those that lie beneath their heads
–
They could not awake. All the serpents bite!
'Thank you,' I said. 'That's very encouraging.' She smiled and looked away. 'Which poem is that?'
'It is the Poem of the Aten,' she replied. 'It is written on the walls of the chamber. Did you not notice it?'
How could she think about poems now?
'It sounds like a warning,' I said.
'It is a wise one.'
We looked up at the stars again.
'Do you think perhaps there are many other worlds besides ours under the sky?' she asked suddenly.
'I can imagine a few better ones, especially tonight,' I said.
'I imagine one where the Red Land is turned into a great garden. The trees are golden, and there are many rivers, and beautiful cities built on hills.'
'You always see heavens. I see the opposite.'
'Why?'
'Perhaps because I live in a land where malignity rules, where fear and shame dwell. I see botched and corrupted lives, failed hopes, broken dreams, murders and mutilations. Injustices committed with authority. I see people with no souls doing the worst possible things to people with no power. For what? For nothing more than riches and power. There is no honour and no dignity in such things. But we're a rich, big, strong, tough, proud land now, so it doesn't matter at all.'
I looked away to the southern horizon, surprised by the ardour of my reply.
'I had a dream before I came here,' I continued. I realized I suddenly needed to tell her about it.
'You are quite a dreamer for such a sceptical man,' she said softly. 'I was in a cold place. Everyt
hing was white. There were dark
strange woods. The trees looked black, as if they had burned. Everything was very still. I was lost. I was looking for someone. Then something impossibly light began to fall from a white sky. Snow. That's all I remember, but the desolation has stayed with me. Like a loss that can't ever be put right.'
She nodded, understanding. 'I have heard of snow.'
'I heard a story about a man who carried a box of it back to the King as a treasure. When it was opened, the snow had vanished.'
She looked interested in this. 'If I were given such a box I would not open it.'
'Surely you'd want to know what was inside?'
You should never open a box of dreams.'
I thought about this for a moment. 'But then you never know if the box is empty or full.'
'No,' she said. 'You never know. But it is still your choice.'
Eventually my thoughts came back to the present.
'We could get to the river and find a boat,' I suggested.
She shook her head. 'And then go where? We must return to the city. All the night creatures are collaborating on their plots and betrayals. I imagine the serpents are sharpening their teeth and filling their mouths with poison. The world makes its claim upon us, and we must not say no.'
She was right, of course. More than anything else, the storm had damaged the family's prestige and opened it up to attack. If they were going to survive they needed to show themselves and reassert their authority. But at what risk?
'But let me ask you this: how are you going to do that? They'll say the storm was a divine judgement against you both.'
She laughed. 'The one thing you never think of is the thing that brings all the great dreams, plans and visions crashing down on your head.'
Her eyes glittered with something
other than curiosity and amuse
ment. Everything she had done seemed, now, to have been futile. Everything she had achieved had been destroyed by the storm, as if it had been clearing the playing board, making many new and un-foreseen developments possible.
'Perhaps you could commission a poet to rewrite the story of today to make the storm seem like part of your grand plan after all. The Poem of the Triumph over the Storm. The Queen returns in glory from the Otherworld, the god of chaos tries to vanquish her, but all his might could not blow down the city of the Aten, nor frighten its Queen.'
'I'm frightened now.'
She looked at me for a moment. I wanted more than anything to hold her as she sat with her arms wrapped tight around her legs, trying to keep warm - or trying to stop he
rself shaking. My heart was sud
denly inappropriately tripping and fluttering like a schoolboy's. She was so close. I could sense the warmth of her skin across the cool night air; I could see the potency of her eyes in the dark. She was distant and sad. I reached out and gently let my hand touch hers. I feared the mountains would rumble and the stars fall from the sky. But none of that happened. She did not move. I believe, now, her breath stilled for a moment. We sat like that for a long moment. Then, with something I hope was reluctance, she slipped her hand out from under mine.
It was then that I heard a very faint trickle of grit and tiny stones nearby on the slope below us. It could have been a desert rabbit, but it was not. I looked up to see Khety gesturing at something. I stood up slowly and backed towards the tomb entrance, trying to make no sound, trying to shield the Queen from whatever was coming up out of the darkness. Another faint trickle, then a clearly audible step being taken closer up the slope, a foot seeking purchase. But the stranger remained in the realm of the shadows. At least we had now reached the entrance to the chamber, which offered us some temporary sanctuary; we lacked the means, other than our daggers, to defend ourselves. I pushed the Queen back into the shadows of the chamber and waited.
A shadow rose up from the slope. It was somewhat out of breath. I recognized immediately the outline of the bulky, powerful body, the brutal shape of the head. I recognized too the dark panting bulk that followed him, faithful and dumb.
'This is a strange place to spend the night.' Mahu's voice was tense. He was trying to disguise his breathlessness.
'We were just looking at the stars,' I replied.
'You could use their help. Where are they? Are they safe?'
'Why are you asking me?'
Then Nefertiti slipped past me, holding a lamp. Mahu looked relieved, and immediately got down uncomfortably on his knees, like a monster before a child.
'I offer prayers of thanks to the Aten for the safe return of the Queen,' he said.
'Give me your report.'
'May I also report to our Lord?'
'He is resting.'
Mahu looked unhappy 'But—' 'He is well,' she insisted.
There was steeliness in her conduct. Mahu was caught out. There was a moment of silent tension between them during which she yielded nothing; and then he nodded. But he had not yet given in.
'That man must leave. I will take charge now.' He pointed at me, his eyes full of loathing. The encounter with Ay still smarted. Good.
'Why? He has protected and saved me, he has brought the royal family to sanctuary, he has perf
ormed well. What have you accom
plished? What have you to say to us that he should not hear?'
It was hard not to smile. I did not try too hard.
Mahu's head moved about nervously on his bulky shoulders. He was like a baboon trapped in a cage, seeking an escape. He was still dangerous to me. He would savage me in a moment. But Nefertiti remained implacable and absolute.
'Speak,' she commanded.
'The city is in chaos,' he said. 'The Great River is jammed with traffic. All who can are leaving. The tent accommodations were blown away. Scaffolding has collapsed, killing citizens and blocking ways.