Tutankhamun Uncovered Page 3

  The queen acknowledged his salute by calling for him to raise his head but remain on his knees. She sat bolt upright, her head held high, and looked directly at him as she spoke. “You have been selected for your special skills, goldsmith. You have been selected to create beauty. Beauty which it will please the gods to behold. Please them so that they may grant long life and good health to this, my son.” She placed her right hand on her swollen belly.

  “It is you who will do this according to my instruction. Should you fail in my bidding, should your work not please the gods, should my son become sick and die, likewise you will suffer his pain.”

  Dashir worked hard. The queen watched him closely. She would touch his work, and complain that the gold leaf was not adhering well to the wooden frame of the texts, tear it off and throw it at him. He would fall to his knees before her and with his arms outstretched beg her forgiveness.

  “I am nervous in your ever present eye, oh Great One,” he would say. “My hand, though skilful, is not steady in the light you throw upon me. Some sleep tonight will strengthen me.”

  The queen let Dashir leave early that evening. While the power of her status could inflict anything on him and his family that she might wish, she knew his skills well and did not want to extinguish the creative flame within him. It was he who had gilded the magnificent statues now erected in her father’s tomb.

  That night when she and her king had retired to their chambers early, Dashir, not at all confident that the queen, during her waking hours, would ever leave him alone long enough to complete his work successfully, stole back into the palace with the help of his servant friends and, by the light of candles, set to his work with renewed vigour.

  The following morning, to Ankhesenamun’s astonishment and consummate delight, the gilding had been completed. The painted texts were framed in a glitter of bright gold. The gods surely would be compelled to visit the newborn and protect him from all dangers.

  To Horemheb’s disappointment, Dashir had left in seemingly jubilant mood and excellent good health. The queen was equally enthralled with the completed work and, in the general’s eyes, all who shouldn’t be feeling so good were in reality in far better spirits than they had been before they had met.

  As things turned out, it was Horemheb himself who felt off colour. That night a feeling of nausea overcame him and, unusually for him, he took neither food nor drink nor woman. He did not sleep, notwithstanding. No sooner had he rested back upon his couch than an uncontrollable energy sprang up within his bowels. The malevolent organism had such power that, although he tried to hold it back ultimately he was forced to deliver the rising issue into an alabaster fruit bowl lying adjacent to the bed. There was little relief from this evacuation. The movement was repeated quickly and, as his servants busied themselves frantically with collecting up the mess left by his first outburst, he propelled himself towards his toilet chambers with a speed and strength of purpose the like of which he had never before exhibited, even on the battlefield. The repetitive retching stayed with him all night and into the following day and night and the day after that. Although there was nothing to bring up but the water he tried to drink, the body continued to pump itself dry until finally there was no strength left within his aching frame to respond to the demands of the tormenting creature that lay within him.

  Horemheb lay exhausted and mindless on his stinking bed. He ached for the blessed relief of oblivion. But the creature inside him was restless and the general once again found himself urgently attempting to respond to its demands by evacuating the remainder of his rapidly shrinking organs. Unfortunately for all present, this would invariably occur while he was in flight towards his toilet. There were few in the room that a piece of him did not touch.

  Later in Horemheb’s life, when he himself would be king, those who had shared the dreadful experience would feel themselves blessed with the intimacy of his foul touch but not this day.

  It was ten days before the general had recovered strength sufficient to show an interest in the normal affairs of state. His first and most important news brought an imperceptibly wry smile. The queen had given premature birth three days earlier. The baby was weakly and was not expected to survive the ordeal, but the mother was recovering well. He asked that his thanks for her survival be given to the gods that evening in a special ceremony and, with anticipation, smugly eased his aching body back into the cushions of his couch.

  All but Ankhesenamun were appeased. Another tiny wooden box would become secreted away into a dark place within the palace.

  On the night that Horemheb had chosen to deliver Tutankhamun, a rare but not unusually severe belt of electrical storms was moving over the Theban vicinity. The accompanying rains were torrential. Where the soil was unvegetated, the sand and rocks were quickly loosened and fell from the bare cliffs, driving down the ravines in a thick, red, boiling holocaust of boulders and mud. That night Pharaoh Ahmose’s tomb was lost beneath the sediment blanket left by the flood waters and three luckless tomb robbers in the act of plundering it became entrapped and suffocated by nature itself condemned, sentenced and summarily executed for their crimes.

  The sickly king parted from his queen early that evening. She had lain with him a while and tried to stimulate him with lotus blossoms, her hands and her mouth, but he complained he was completely spent and had no energy to linger with her.

  In the din of the thunder and the rain lashing against the walls of the palace, Horemheb walked to the king’s quarters and, saying that he wished to leave an amulet with the Pharaoh to assure the king a good night’s rest, commanded the Nubian sentinels to let him in. He paused on the threshold for a moment. It occurred to him that Seth in his wisdom was his protector this night. The general strode purposefully into the room. The noise of the large cedar doors closing behind him was drowned out by the thunder above.

  The king had been given an additional sleep potion that evening to ensure he rested fully through to the morning. Horemheb had seen to that. Although all the halls were open to the sky, the king would not be disturbed by the cacophony of thunder and the rattle of the continuous downpour splattering on the floors. Should the Pharaoh awaken during the act of murder, the noise of the storm would be sufficient to extinguish his cries.

  Since his design was to appear to have discovered the king in death, the general could avoid suspicion only by being brief. He hurried over to the king’s bedside and drew a long, narrow, copper rod from his tunic.

  Tutankhamun was asleep on his stomach with his face towards the left. Horemheb bent close and carefully positioned the palm of his left hand with the rod lying on it such that one end was aligned with the entrance to the king’s right nostril. He knew he could not introduce it slowly; there was too much risk that the sensation would rouse the king, even from his induced stupor. Worse still, any slight movement of the king’s head might cause the rod to penetrate the cartilage. Were there any visible perforation of the skin, the entire conspiracy would be exposed. Horemheb had to be quick and he had to be accurate. He clenched the opposite end of the rod tightly with his left fist, checked that the shaft was still in line with the right nostril, and struck firmly with his right hand.

  In one immediate movement, the rod drove up through the nasal tissue and perforated the thin skull wall, embedding itself in the brain mass. The young king’s head jerked back violently, but he remained unconscious. The general gave the rod a quick twist and withdrew it. An urgent, sanguine flood issued onto the bed linen, turning it a sodden crimson in just a few seconds. Horemheb quickly wiped the rod on the bloody bed clothing, returned it under the material of his tunic, and ran to the chamber door shrieking for the guards as he went.

  That infamous night all who observed the rapidly paling body in the bed chamber were quick to come to the same conclusion. The king’s death was quite naturally attributed to his known malady this time a massive haemorrhaging, probably precipitated by his fever. No one, outwardly at least, suspected any wrong do
ing, let alone any thought that the general could have been instrumental in this horror. After all, he had been in the chamber only moments enough to discover the ailing king’s predicament.

  The shock at the sudden death of the young king spread rapidly about the halls of the palace. The wailing began. Horemheb realised he must take control of the situation.

  “Look to your emotions!” he bellowed. “Our early departed lord would have no wish for hysteria. Give thanks that his ka still sleeps and may not hear you. We must set ourselves to the task of awakening him in eternal life. Summon Parannefer for the preparation. We must turn to Ay for leadership. Awaken the Pharaoh! Our new lord must be present at the cleansing.”

  “The queen, Excellency,” said a maidservant timidly. “Who will tell the queen?”

  “The queen?” The general turned and glared down at her.

  She saw the anger in his face and a cold fear overcame her. The girl fell to her knees. Horemheb realised his error and took a deep breath. He smiled one of those forced, insincere grins that were so characteristic of him.

  “Permit Queen Ankhesenamun the dignity of peaceful sleep until sunrise,” he said obsequiously. “She shall grieve enough presently. No need to deny her rest as well. We must prepare the king such that she does not see the horror of his bloody state. Be about your business with haste!”

  The girl bowed low to the ground and ran off with the others to get clean bedclothes.

  Nakht, in charge of many things but above all the security of the king’s quarters, was probably more worried than any. “There is no doubt it was the humour, right, General?”

  “No doubt at all, Vizier. There can be no thought of foul play. Besides, the security forces under your command are beyond reproach, are they not?”

  “Indeed, General, indeed. Trusty servants, indeed.” Nakht gave one of his sheepish grins.

  A scuffle at the entrance to the chamber caused both Horemheb and the vizier to turn their heads.

  The old Ay, dragged hastily from the shallow sleep of the aged, was escorted into the king’s private suite by two chambermaids. After briefly examining the body of the boy king he turned to those assembled about him, drew a deep breath and gravely pronounced his ascendancy. “My friends,” he announced, “we have unhappily lost a sapling king and, deprived of his issue, gained an aged tree. All here know that as father of the great queen Nefertiti the gods protect her my blood is the purest of the regal line. While my energies fail me in these, the shadowed years of my life and, I fear, I will be no match for your expectations of our dear departed Tutankhamun I shall nevertheless give of my best as you know me to have done in the recent past. In so doing I shall claim of you your strongest allegiance.”

  With the exception of Horemheb and his guards everyone present prostrated themselves before the Pharaoh designate. The ‘protectors’ never compromised their state of readiness.

  “Rise people!” commanded Ay. “There is work to do. Our first and most immediate task is to assure our dear departed king safe embarkation on the ark that will bear him on his blissful, eternal voyage!”

  The village of Pademi lay cradled in a shallow depression under the shadow of the pyramidal mountain. This great rock overlooked both the villagers and their place of work The Valley. There, on the west side of the ridge, lay the resting place of kings long past. With the help of the villagers it was from here that the Pharaoh would begin his eternal journey through the paradise of afterlife.

  This evening, as every evening, The Valley drank in the dying sun, and the spirits of those few who had survived uncorrupted danced on. For those who lived in the village, sunset always took on a deep significance. It was a time to pay tribute to their own dead. The modest tombs of their forebears lay clustered on the eastern side of the ridge, just above the village boundary wall.

  Stooping like a man bearing a great weight on his shoulders, Meneg eased himself down onto his knees and positioned the small offering in the centre of the colourfully decorated alcove within the small pyramidal chapel. Every day near sunset he came from his house close by in Pademi. Every day near sunset he would leave a little something to aid his parents’ survival in the underworld. Every day when he arrived at the spot he would find that the previous offering had gone, scavenged by the jackals and the vermin that infested the place. But he comforted himself in the belief that the kas of his parents first would have eaten and drunk their fill.

  The old woodworker whispered a short prayer and touched his lips with the fingers of both hands. Using his walking stick for support, he pulled himself back to a standing position, turned and walked down the slope towards the village.

  He sat once more on the doorstep of his house and returned to his work. The evening shadows extended towards him across the narrow street. Old man that he was, it was with some difficulty that he crossed his legs to address more comfortably the inanimate object before him.

  He was a man of slight build, but one of his more evident physical features included an incongruous oblate paunch that hung like a water bag over his loin cloth. The fingers of his large hands were artistically narrow, the skin toughened through years of woodworking. The toll of responsibility that accompanies a lifetime as master wood carver of the village showed in the lines cut deep within his thin face. Written in the creases about his eyes was the history of thousands of hours of squinting in bright sunlight and straining to pick out detail in the dimness of evening. Yet his eye for form and the dexterity of his hands were as true as ever.

  The alleyway that ran by his door divided the enclosed village along its centre. Diminutive ‘dolls’ houses’ of dwellings lay huddled so closely together on either side that they seemed to embrace one another, with just three or four rooms and a single door, each home sharing its boundary walls with its neighbours. The cobbles, polished smooth by the foot traffic of ages, glinted violet in the twilight. The evening air was thick with the pungent smell of kitchen ovens and the satisfying odour of freshly baked bread. At the darker end of the street Dashir and his gang, once again returned from their labours, were breaking the otherwise peaceful setting with the noise of their carousing amongst the ever energetic washer women in Hammad’s bar.

  Meneg looked down at the unfinished wooden figure in front of him and sighed. He had always strived to make his art of a quality that would match its celebration. Usually he had been filled with such inspirational strength that execution of the work was almost easy. But this time it was different. Since returning from his parents’ chapel his lack of concentration had sent him back into the house for beer three times already, and this had done little to improve his demeanour or his sensibility. He felt tired, listless. Inspiration would have to come from somewhere and quickly, or ultimately he would answer to the general.

  Ugele was on his way to join the evening action. He had had a hard and unsatisfactory day completing excavation of the new tomb in The Valley. Master mason he may have been, but it had been his turn these last few days to take his place in the long line of bodies passing baskets of debris from one to the other towards the tip on the valley flank. The supply of rock chippings seemed endless. There could be no indication of how near the tomb was to completion until the baskets stopped coming. He much preferred being within the bowels of the earth hacking at the limestone bedrock himself, watching the cavity take form and slowly grow before him. There he could sense progress.

  His tired, long legs hung down loosely either side of the donkey’s spare belly, almost reaching to the ground. They swung from side to side together following the animal’s rolling gait. The donkey and its rider drew level with the figure squatting in the doorway.

  The man stared with an expression of hopelessness at the freshly cut wooden object before him.

  “The gods protect you, Meneg,” Ugele greeted as man and beast ambled past.

  “And you, Ugele,” Meneg gestured back with a dispassionate wave of his hand.

  “As I descended from The Valley I saw you praying at
the remembrance shrine of Kha and Merit. You care for them well. Yours is a good family. They were good parents. They will be proud to have such a son.”

  “Aye. But no more than my sacred duty. They cared for me well. My sons will do so for me.”

  “Praise be to the gods,” they both said.

  “But enough of duty talk. How about a few beers with Dashir and the lads, Meneg? Parneb was on good form last night, was he not? Perhaps he will force a report from Dashir! Looks like you need the amusement as much as I.”

  “That is part of my problem,” the old man replied. “I have drunk sufficient already this evening. I am far behind in my work. I cannot afford to waste what little light remains.”

  While the two had been conversing the donkey, with a full fodder bag and a night’s rest ahead of it, and therefore being in no mood to dally, had continued on its way homeward. Ugele was already well past Meneg’s doorway. The black man signalled back an acknowledgement with his hand, the donkey loped purposefully onward, and the two disappeared into the shadows.

  Meneg continued his reflections. This dead king deserved only his very best work. The Pharaoh had achieved much in his short life. He had returned the order of life to godly sensibility. It was true to say that much of this had been dictated and controlled by the elders who had advised and instructed him in the ways of kingship during his most formative years, but the boy king nevertheless had willingly supported their recommendations. He had personally given orders for the work to be carried out. On the rare occasions that he had appeared in public he had pronounced his plans before all with lucidity, never once showing malice to Akhenaten, yet always looking to the future. A sense of optimism returned to the rank and file. Sadly his death came too quickly to establish any lasting memory. The people had not come to know him as a warrior. By the time of his passing he was barely a man. The coming celebration of his deliverance into the afterlife would be mixed with a pervasive lack of substance. Meneg and his colleagues would be guests at a funeral for a pharaoh they had hardly come to know. But the community would make sure that the burial and its associated ceremonies would be none the less for all that. Meneg’s art, his skills, all he had learned and become accomplished in execution, all this was in service of the community, this monarch, past monarchs and, perhaps, monarchs yet to come. He must fulfil all expectations.