The Murder of King Tut (5 page)

Then the crowd exploded with a roar so loud that the ground beneath the reviewing stand shook.

Aye flicked his eyes back toward the street and saw that the pharaoh had somehow righted himself and pulled himself up onto
the back of the horse. He now sat astride the white charger, fully in control as the team galloped on. Down came Nefertiti’s
hands. Away went the look of horror. She was a woman renewed, glowing with pride and love.

As the pharaoh halted the horses at the base of the reviewing stand, the crowd screamed in adulation. He looked up at Nefertiti,
his eyes relieved and confident. He dismounted and walked slowly down the center of the boulevard, basking in the divine certainty
that he was both ruler and god.

And then Nefertiti placed her lips to Aye’s ear. He could smell her perfume and feel the heat of her skin. More than ever,
he lusted for this beautiful woman.

“Starting tomorrow, Aye,” she told him, “Egypt will be changed forever. Mark my words.”

He had no idea what she was talking about. The only thing that mattered was the beating of his heart and the way his name
had sounded in her mouth.

“And Aye?”

“Yes, my queen?”

“If I ever see you looking at me that way again, I will feed your heart to the crocodiles.”

1345 BC

ONLY IN THE ANCIENT WORLD was such a thing possible—such a miracle in architecture. In just two years, the city of Amarna
was complete. Aye had been in charge of the site, and now he sent word to the pharaoh. He figured he had three weeks, maybe
four, until Akhenaten and his host of minions arrived.

But he had underestimated the earnestness of his king’s desire to flee Thebes.

A week after his message was received, Aye was sipping ale on the terrace of the new royal palace. He was bored and lonely.
His wife was still in Thebes. Even worse, so were his harem girls.

He gazed out at the Nile, marveling at the view. It truly was a gorgeous afternoon. The sky was a clear blue, and the heat
tolerable if he stayed in the shade.

Then the royal vizier saw a sight so shocking that he nearly dropped his ceramic mug.

Cruising up the Nile was an armada of ships. Dozens. No, make that hundreds of vessels. Their great trapezoidal sails were
visible from miles away. Aye could see thousands of citizens from Thebes lining the decks, ready to start their new lives
in Amarna.

And on the prow of the largest barge, to see firsthand all that he’d created, stood Akhenaten. The stunning Nefertiti and
their three coquettish daughters were at his side.

Akhenaten raised the royal standard in triumph, but Aye was focusing on Nefertiti and those three girls.

No boys. Just girls.

“I’ll kill him,” Aye said in a flash of inspiration. Of course. It was the perfect solution.

Magnificent as she was, Nefertiti had not yet borne the pharaoh an heir. And with no male heir, there was no clear succession.
If the pharaoh died—suddenly—there was no one to stop Aye from declaring himself pharaoh.

No one but Nefertiti, the queen bee.

“I’ll deal with her when the time comes,” Aye mumbled, already planning his crime. But he couldn’t afford to make a mistake.
To kill the pharaoh and go undetected would require a perfect murder. He would have to be patient, choosing just the right
moment and the right means of execution.

Aye pursed his lips. If nothing else, he was patient. The plan had been revealed to him in an instant, every detail and twist,
but it would take some time to execute.

“Someday
I
will be the pharaoh,” he said boldly.

1892

THIS WAS AMAZING—
Amarna!

Howard Carter carefully studied the lay of the land to make sure he had found just the right spot. What he wanted was a place
with a view that was also close to the tombs. He had already examined the sand for drainage lines so that he wouldn’t accidentally
be swept away by a torrential downpour or the Nile when it over-flowed its banks.

Now, at last, he settled on a spot.
This was it.

Turning his head slowly in either direction to survey the horizon, he nodded to his small army of construction workers, who
sprang into action—or at least moved as quickly as their somewhat relaxed approach to life and labor allowed.

Imagine—he was building a home here, a simple structure made of mud bricks like the ancient Egyptians used. For the first
time in his life, Howard Carter was putting down roots, although shallow ones.

He would be laboring in Amarna, former home to Akhenaten and Nefertiti. The once grand, now ruined city was located at a broad
bend in the Nile, on a low plateau fronted by a stunning array of cliffs. There was a shortage of housing in the newly rediscovered
city, hence Carter’s need to build his own. It would not be just any home, however, but a practical domicile in which ancient
Egyptians would have been comfortable. He had begun by purchasing a thousand mud bricks for just ten pennies.

It was January, the peak of the dig season.

Carter had left Beni Hasan—and Percy Newberry—for Amarna, thanks once again to the patronage of Lord Amherst. He would work
there under veteran Flinders Petrie, making elaborate drawings of discoveries large and small.

Immediately on Carter’s arrival, Petrie had made it known that they would travel by foot at all times. Petrie, a frugal man,
didn’t feel a need to purchase donkeys when walking was just as quick and far less expensive.

Carter also learned that he would be “cooking” for himself.
Cooking
was a euphemism for opening the tin cans that contained breakfast, lunch, and dinner on a Petrie dig site. Canned food was
cheaper than purchasing local fare and hiring a cook.

Beyond that, canned food was more efficient. Flinders Petrie liked to work from eight in the morning until eight at night,
each and every day. The less time spent on frivolities like cooking, the more time spent on excavation.

In addition, Carter received word that he was no longer just a sketch artist. Petrie had seen dozens of book-educated Englishmen
come into the field, certain that their knowledge had prepared them to be excavators, and most had failed miserably.

Now, due to a shortage of excavators and an intuitive belief that the cocksure young Carter could be trained more easily than
someone older and less ambitious, Petrie informed Carter that excavation was being added to his daily list of chores.

Surprisingly, the results thus far had been less than stellar. “Carter’s interest is entirely in painting and natural history,”
Petrie had written in his journal on January 9, less than a week after Carter’s arrival. “He is of no use to me as an excavator.”

An early review—of the man who would make the most famous discovery ever in the Valley of the Kings.

1345 BC

THE FIERCE AND BELLICOSE General Horemheb could not believe what he was hearing from this silly, useless pharaoh.

“We will not be waging war on our neighbors,” Akhenaten decreed, slouching in his throne.

The general should not have been cowed by the words of the pharaoh, but the intensity with which Akhenaten stared into his
eyes was unsettling. Some men took power from privilege. Others took it from their position. And still others took it from
physical prowess. The pharaoh pretended he possessed all three. This gave him a surety that Horemheb found disconcerting to
say the least.

Horemheb. This statue is on display at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

So while Horemheb longed to topple the pharaoh’s misguided government with some great military takeover, he found himself
listening to this most incredible statement delivered by a freakish weakling, and there was nothing he could do about it.

“But Pharaoh, if I may, we depend on war for many things: our wealth, our security, our status. This will mean the ruin of
us. Your father—”

“I don’t want to hear about my father. My father is in his tomb. His ways and his gods are things of the past. Just as dead
as he is.”

“But, sire, we are the most powerful nation in all directions. Certainly we must protect that.”

Things have changed for the worse since the move to Amarna,
Horemheb wanted to shout.
The country is going soft. The king never even leaves the palace. The great cities of Memphis and Thebes are in decline. We,
as an Egyptian people, are in rapid decline.

But he said none of these things. Instead, Horemheb listened to the pharaoh drone on in his stupid, idealistic way.

“And we will. We will worship Aten, who will protect our borders. But I see no need to wage war. What is so wrong with being
a peaceful nation?”

“I believe in peace through strength, sire. We know this works from long experience.”

“I would expect to hear nothing less from you, General. That is your job.”

“And what is strength if it is not wielded? May I ask you that?”

The pharaoh smiled in a most condescending manner. “General, when was the last time you spent a day just dreaming?”

Horemheb’s jaw nearly dropped off his head. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me. Do you ever write poetry? Do you ever lose yourself in thought? Have you ever completed a painting?”

“I am a warrior, sire. I am not trained to sit and think; I am trained to do.”

“Then do
this.
”

Akhenaten said nothing. Instead, he closed his eyes as if to meditate.

Horemheb waited until he could wait no longer. “Sire, what is it you would like me to do?”

“Relax. Take your mind off war. Egypt no longer needs conflict, for we are protected by the great sun god, who will provide
for all our needs.”

And lead us to ruin,
Horemheb thought angrily.

“You are dismissed,” said the pharaoh with a gentle wave of his hand. “Go write a poem.”

1341 BC

“TUT. MY POOR TUT. What shall become of you?”

Nefertiti held her newborn son in her arms and feared for his life. Technically, the child was not her own, for he did not
spring from her loins. But that idiot husband of hers with the wandering eye was the father, so the child might as well be
the son of the queen.

The birth mother’s name was Kiya, and the pharaoh had given the pretty young harlot the title Greatly Beloved Wife, which
placed her above even Nefertiti in esteem.

Kiya was—had been—a Mitannian princess named Tadukhepa, sent to Egypt by her father, as a peace treaty between the two nations.
For three long years Nefertiti had endured the woman’s presence, watching her repeatedly take the queen’s place in the pharaoh’s
bed. The man whom Nefertiti once loved had become a stranger to her, devoted to his beloved Aten and his child bride.

Why, the pharaoh had even begun telling people that he himself was Aten, that the pharaoh and the god were one and the same.
It was Nefertiti who had the nerve to correct him, and for that he had cast her from his bed.

I am still the mother of his children,
she reminded herself.

Yes, but all girls. This one, the son, will be the next pharaoh. I am no better than Tiye. When the pharaoh dies, the empire
will fall to this child, this baby. And what will become of me?

What does it matter? There will be nothing left of the great Egyptian nation by the time my husband dies. That fool has seen
to that.

The people of Egypt were starving and reverting to their nomadic ways, forsaking their farms and cities for a hardscrabble
life on the move, all thanks to Akhenaten’s neglect or perhaps his insanity. The priests of Thebes wanted to kill him for
usurping their gods with his own—and for asserting himself as a god. The royal vizier pretended to be a faithful servant,
but once he got tired of Akhenaten’s preening, he too would want to stab the pharaoh in the back.

And what of Horemheb? Surely the general went to sleep each night and dreamed only of a military takeover.

So what stopped them? Could it be that they actually believed the pharaoh was a god? What fools men are. Or what liars.

The baby started to cry. Poor Tut.

Nefertiti was about to whisper to the child, telling him that at that very moment his mother was being placed inside her tomb.
She had died giving birth, and Tut would never feel the comfort of her arms or suckle her bosom. But the time for such talk
was past.

“Be still, my son,” Nefertiti said. “I am your mother now, and I will raise you to be the pharaoh your father should have
been. You will be king. I promise you.”

1894

THE BLAZING SUN was beating down on Howard Carter’s neck. It was Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, which meant that dig season
was over, since the men fasted during the day. This made them too weak to dig in the hot sun.

Now Carter, working alone, alternately photographed and sketched the northwest chamber of a newly excavated temple near Luxor.
He was nineteen years old.