An Evil Spirit Out of the West (Ancient Egyptian Mysteries) (20 page)

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Authors: Paul Doherty

BOOK: An Evil Spirit Out of the West (Ancient Egyptian Mysteries)
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‘Life changes, Mahu.’ He put the wine jug down, his hands going beneath the table, a deliberate movement; with any other man I’d suspect he was searching for a knife. Then his right hand came up. ‘I am your friend, Mahu. I have watched you. I know all about you. I am one with you.’
This time the offer of a hand was more formal. He curled back his fingers to reveal an amber and jasper amulet depicting the Aten in the palm of his hand. ‘I am your friend, Mahu, your ally.’
‘Under the sun,’ I replied, ‘no trust will last, neither in brother nor in friend. Don’t they tell us, the Wise Ones, not even to put our trust in Pharaoh or our confidence in the war-chariots of Egypt?’
‘But a true friend is powerful protection,’ he retorted. ‘It is dangerous to walk alone under the sun.’
I clasped the hand. Ay gripped my fingers and tightly squeezed, then let me withdraw, pushing the amulet into my hand.
‘Come,’ he drained his cup. ‘We have eaten and drunk enough.’
We left the hall of audience arm-in-arm as if we were blood brothers or father and son, Ay talking, gesticulating with his fingers, saying how pleased he was to see the marvels of the Malkata Palace. How he, his family and entourage would be moving into the House of Residence. Once we were through the gate and into the olive groves he dropped such pretence. He clasped my arm, asking me sharp, short questions. Where did I come from? What about my years in the House of the Kap? My experience in war? The campaign against the Kushites? My friendship with Sobeck? He asked such questions though he already seemed to know the answers. Exasperated, I paused. I wanted to go back to the house and feast my eyes on Nefertiti.
‘You said you knew everything about me,’ I confronted him. He was the same height as me. Ay clicked his tongue and glanced away.
‘I wanted to hear you talk, Mahu. Yes, I know everything about you – and more. I knew your mother.’ He smiled at my astonishment. ‘She was beautiful. Did you know that she was distant kin?’
I shook my head in amazement.
‘Oh yes’ – he made that airy gesture again – ‘third or fourth cousin. I forget now. However, her mother came from the town of Akhmin.’ His grin widened and he punched me playfully on the shoulder. ‘So it’s good to meet you, kinsman.’
‘I never knew this.’
‘Of course you didn’t.’ He cleaned his mouth with his tongue. ‘Your father was besotted with her. A happy couple.’ He glanced over my shoulder as if studying something behind me. ‘Aunt Isithia, however,’ he smiled grimly, ‘she was different, wasn’t she? Your father’s half-sister. A sour vessel, Isithia. Crooked of speech and crooked of soul. Did you know she was married twice?’
Ay enjoyed my amazement. ‘Oh yes, a young priest in the service of Amun-Ra at Luxor. He died of a fever, or so they say. Some people whispered that he had been given a little help across the Far Horizon.’
‘Aunt Isithia?’
‘In her days she was a temple girl and more. She dabbled in the black arts, became skilled in potions and poisons. Some said she was a witch, others a necromancer who cast horoscopes.’
He walked round me, as if to ensure that no one lurked in the trees, no spy eavesdropped. He stopped beside me, his mouth only a few inches from my ear.
‘When the Prince was born, the priests of Amun-Ra went to Aunt Isithia and asked her to cast a horoscope, to draw back the veil of time and glimpse the future.’
My heart skipped a beat. Ay’s touch on my shoulder was cold, his voice hoarse yet powerful, as if speaking across the years and rousing nightmares in my adult soul.
‘So you see, Mahu’ – it was as if he could read my mind – ‘accidents do not happen. You were not included in the Kap because of your father but because of your aunt. In her younger days she was a beauty and she offered services as a widow to other priests. They say she even had a cure for impotence; a strict mistress, Isithia.’
I recalled those cries in the night, those mysterious cowled visitors.
‘Did Isithia cast the horoscope for the Prince?’
‘Of course.’ Ay kept his mouth close to my ear. ‘She predicted the Prince would deal out justice and judgement to the other gods of Egypt. If the priests had had their way, the Prince would have been drowned at birth. The Magnificent One almost agreed, had it not been for my sister Tiye and the protection of He who sees and hears all that is done in secret.’
‘And she cast my horoscope?’
‘Yes. You were born at about the same time as the Prince. You know how it’s done? The horoscope of a commoner against that of a Prince of the blood. The priests demanded this. They were astonished when Isithia declared that your life and that of the newborn Prince – the Grotesque,’ he pronounced the name slowly, ‘were inextricably linked.’
‘And they demanded my death?’ I felt the sudden rush of blood to my face.
‘Of course,’ Ay whispered, ‘but the Magnificent One was most reluctant. Your father was a great soldier and Queen Tiye – well …’ he sniggered. ‘The priests may have had Pharaoh’s ear but she had access, how can I say, to other parts of his body? You were always destined for the Kap, Mahu. Brought here and watched and then allowed to serve the Grotesque. The Magnificent One is fascinated. He wishes to see if the horoscope cast unfolds, if your aunt spoke with true voice.’ He patted me on the shoulder and came to stand squarely in front of me. ‘The Magnificent One allowed both of you to live but your aunt, under pain of death, was forbidden to cast a horoscope ever again. You were too young to remember this: she was taken away in the dead of night by men from the House of Secrets. They kept her in a chamber, polluted by the corpses of slaughtered animals.’ He screwed up his eyes. ‘Oh, it must have been six or seven days on hard bread and brackish water. A stinking pit, a warning to her of what might happen if she ever violated the Decree of the Divine One.’
‘The flies?’ I whispered. ‘Aunt Isthia always hated flies.’
‘So would you,’ Ay laughed, ‘if you had been locked in a pit with swarms all about you, crawling over your flesh.’
‘So, this is all ordained?’
He caught the sarcasm in my voice.
‘We don’t believe in that, do we, Mahu?’
I shook my head. Ay took my hands in his, head slightly to one side.
‘I do like you, Mahu. So, tell me the truth.’
‘I don’t believe Aunt Isithia could see the future,’ I replied.
‘But?’ Ay let go of my hands.
‘Aunt Isithia was first married to a soldier, then to a priest of Amun-Ra,’ I explained. ‘As a widow she served other priests who came to drink from her cup of pleasure. From the moment …’
‘From the moment Akhenaten was born,’ Ay finished the sentence.
‘From the moment Akhenaten was born,’ I continued, ‘the priests were against him. They saw him as a curse from God, ungraceful of face and not fair of form. Isn’t that how they put it? How could such a Prince be presented to the people? How could such a Prince embody the glory of Egypt? How could such a Prince with his ugly face and deformed body enter the Holy of Holies to make sacrifice? They wanted him dead and Aunt Isithia simply complied with their wishes.’
‘Very good,’ Ay nodded. ‘And yourself, Mahu?’
‘My mother died giving birth. Isithia hated her. My father was a soldier, often absent on military service. Aunt Isithia was saddled with an unwanted brat. She wished me dead but tried to pass the responsibility onto others. She sowed the seeds.’ I shrugged. ‘And we all know the harvest. Akhenaten was cursed and I must live with that curse. So, when my father died, the Divine One felt guilty. He recalled the oracle and so I joined the Kap.’
Ay stood back and clapped his hands softly.
‘Very clever, Mahu.’
‘There were no oracles,’ I declared. I turned, hawked and spat. ‘Just a wicked woman and her accomplices. That’s why she was arrested, wasn’t she, and taken to the Place of Chains, the House of Secrets? The Divine One wanted to make sure she spoke with true voice.’ I laughed abruptly. ‘Of course Aunt Isithia saw the future then. If she confessed that she’d told a lie, she would have stayed in that pit, whatever the gaolers promised her. It was better for her to stick to her story and hope for the best.’
‘And that, my dear Mahu, is how legends begin.’
‘But do you believe,’ I asked, ‘that Akhenaten will dispense judgement and justice to the other gods of Egypt?’
Ay bent down, picked up a rotting fig from the ground and squashed it between his fingers. ‘That’s how much I feel about the gods of Egypt, Mahu. What I do believe in,’ he stared at me, a gleam of fanaticism in his eyes, ‘is the glory of Egypt, the power and majesty of Pharaoh. The rattle and charge of her war-chariots and the tramp of her regiments.’ He gestured with his hand. ‘But in Thebes, in Memphis, in all the great cities of the Nile, Egypt harbours a viper in her bosom: the power of the priests. The power of the temples, their wealth, their hunger for more.’ He drew closer again. ‘The real threat to Egypt does not lie in the barbarians who throng our borders or the Libyan Desert Wanderers, jealous of our cities, eager for our gold. It’s the enemy within, Mahu. They must be curbed.’ He spread his hands. ‘Look at the Divine One,’ he whispered, ‘the Glorious One. How does he spend his time, Mahu? By building more temples and glorifying the priests! He has let the raging lion in the door, and thinks by throwing meat at it he will satisfy its hunger.’ He shook his head. ‘The lion must be either driven out or killed. Politics, Mahu,’ he grinned, ‘that’s what I believe. My politics are my religion. My religion is my politics. And what are politics but the pursuit of glory and power of our House and the Kingdom of Egypt?’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Now you could ask why I have spoken to you so frankly, so openly. Because, Mahu, you and I are kindred souls. I need you, you need me. And where can you go? To the priests of Amun-Ra? To the Divine One? To God’s Father Hotep? They’d simply torture you for everything you knew and later bury you out in the hot sands. They’d forget you even before the dirt began to fill your mouth and nostrils. You are with us, Mahu, because you want to be but, more importantly, because you have to be.’ He grasped me by the shoulder. ‘Now tell me – these troops that are camped around our master’s house: are they there to spy, protect, or do both?’
And chatting like two lifelong friends, we continued our walk through the sunfilled grove and into the bloody intricate politics of the imperial court.
It’s remarkable how people can draw a line under events, then look back and say, ‘That’s when it happened, that’s when it changed.’ Sometimes it’s an easy task: the crucial point is marked by the death of a ruler or a relative. Sometimes the change is so gradual that only on reflection do you realise that things were never the same again after a certain point. The arrival of Nefertiti and her entourage marked such a change. Imperceptible at first, their influence grew like ivy round the vine, higher and tighter, spreading out its creepers.
After our little talk, Ay became a firm ally, a tactful but forceful adviser. He was at least fifteen summers older than me, yet I had to shake myself to realise he had not been with me in the Kap. Nefertiti, of course, I always regarded as a dream who dwelt in my soul since the moment of conception; I recognised and loved her immediately. I accepted the others of her retinue because of her. The principal of these was Ay’s half-brother, Nakhtimin. He had resigned his colonelcy of a regiment to join his relatives at the Malkata. A slender, dour man of few words, Nakhtimin served as Ay’s Chamberlain and Principal Steward, constantly in the background organising and managing, seeing to the small things of life. He was particularly interested in Snefru and Akhenaten’s personal guard. Despite the difference in status, he and Snefru became friends. Nakhtimin turned those whom Horemheb had contemptuously dismissed as ‘toy soldiers’ into a professional fighting force. He, Snefru and I often went out into the wastelands to recruit similar men who had either lost their souls or were prepared to sell them. We were like a wall which ringed a garden. Akhenaten lay at the heart of this garden and he flowered as if a fire blazed in his soul. Of course, within weeks he and Nefertiti were married. The simple ceremony was followed by a sumptuous feast, supervised by Ay and witnessed by Tiye, Crown Prince Tuthmosis, Nakhtimin and myself. I gave them gifts, an alabaster jar of the most expensive Kiphye perfume for Nefertiti and a glorious bow of honour to my master.
When Nefertiti moved into Akhenaten’s quarters, I felt a stab of jealousy though this was soon soothed by her very presence, my closeness to her. She and Akhenaten were absorbed with each other, living in a paradise of their own creation. Akhenaten lost his fretful energy, that occasional vindictiveness, and became calmer, more harmonious. The physical changes were equally noticeable; the furrowed lines disappeared around his brow and cheeks. Nefertiti also taught him how to move more easily, to exude a certain majesty in his bearing, a bravery in accepting his disabilities whilst turning them into something special.
The weeks passed. Ay was busy in the House of Residence. Akhenaten and Nefertiti, hand-in-hand, would tour what they now called their Palace of the Aten, be closeted in their chamber or, surrounded by their guards, go out into the gardens and grounds. At first Akhenaten was so besotted with Nefertiti, I hardly spoke to him. One day I was sitting in the pavilion when I heard his footsteps and there he stood in the doorway resting on his cane, clutching his gauze-like robe tightly. I could tell from the dirt on his knees and the specks of mud on his robe that at such an early hour, just after dawn, he and Nefertiti had been out worshipping their god. Once the Beautiful Woman had arrived, there were no more nightly forays into the desert or cloaked strangers gathering at the gates. This was not only due to Nefertiti but the arrival of imperial troops and the accompanying spies who watched us every second of the day. On that morning Akhenaten’s face was solemn. I would have slipped to my knees on a cushion but he gestured that I sit back and he knelt before me. He stared earnestly up at me.

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