Casting the Gods Adrift (5 page)

The sun rested on the horizon, distorted to the shape of an ostrich egg. Aten-the-all-seeing was leaving the sky, leaving me alone with my father's wicked dream. This one night, I was terrified to see Him go. I would be without His help till morning.

Having kept his plan secret for weeks, my father now wanted to talk. He wanted to talk and talk and talk. Ibrim had gone to the palace to play at a banquet for a visiting Syrian diplomat; he would not be home till morning. Father felt free to talk to me, his fellow-conspirator. Though I doubt he had slept one night since his dream at Edfu, he showed no sign of weariness. A demonic energy kept him wide awake, whereas I could feel my eyelids drooping, my stomach aching for want of sleep. I never knew that
worry
could be so exhausting.

When I woke, the sun was well up. It took me a moment to remember that Father was home. Then I saw him, curled up like a baby on the couch, his face aged by years in the sun, the bones of his skull sharply white under the skin. Creeping on bare feet, so as not to wake him, I carried my clothes outside and dressed as I ran up to the workshop, through streets already crowded with people.

A half-dozen craftsmen, already seated at their benches, looked up as I opened the door of the workshop. At my own work
place, my tools lay ranged in an orderly row, like a surgeon's knives. Beside them lay a fold of sacking. Where the blue-glaze faience cat had stood there was a circle in the wood shavings, the spilled slip and scraps of clay. But the cat itself had gone.

Someone had taken it.

‘The cat! Where is the cat?' I blurted out at the man hammering gold leaf by the window.

‘The princess took it,' he said with a wry smile, knowing how many times it had happened before.

‘The princess? Are you sure? Did you see her?'

‘Not a hundred breaths ago,' said the goldsmith, wincing at my loudness. He was understandably puzzled. I had never before objected to Ankhesenpa-aten helping herself. He cursed me as I threw open the door and made a draught that fluttered some of his golden flakes to the ground.

I ran after the princess, but did not catch
up before she reached the queen's palace, where I could not follow. I stopped in front of the guards, havering, uncertain what to do, picturing Ankhesenpa-aten, my exquisite ‘Ankh', poking her little paintbrush into the caked eye holes, brushing them open. I thought of the asps glimpsing light and rearing up their little bulbous heads, licking the air, tasting the perfume of Ankh. Then I set off to run around the seemingly endless palace wall to where I knew Ankh's room looked out over an orchard of frankincense and moringa trees.

‘Princess! Princess Ankhesenpa-aten!' I called in a whisper that quickly broke into a cry of desperation. ‘Princess,
please.
'

At last, her sweet, oval face appeared, framed by the arch of the window. ‘The cat, Princess! Did you take the cat?'

It was not seemly to suggest any such thing, I knew that. To suggest that a princess had filched something from a craftsman! By all the laws of courtesy, I should have pretended the cat never existed, or that I had given it to the princess myself, or that it
was still in my workshop. The face at the window looked shocked.

‘It was pretty.' She pursed her lips, preparing to be outraged if I dared to question her right to take it.

‘It wasn't finished. It was only half made!' I protested. ‘Let me have it back, and I'll make it perfect for you!'

‘Was it not for me?'

‘No. I mean, yes! Of course! Naturally! But you deserve only what is perfect! It has to be perfect for you …
Please
!'

‘Well, it doesn't matter now. I have given it to my mother as a present.' And she pouted a little, for I had spoiled her presents as well as questioning her actions.

‘Your
mother
! You gave it to the
great queen
?'

Ankhesenpa-aten turned away from the window. Her handmaid was waiting to make her ready for the public gaze. When I called again, she reappeared, impatient and angry with me, a cone of perfumed wax fastened to the crown of her glossy black wig.

‘Princess, where is my brother? Have you seen him? I must find my brother!' I called
up to her. Ibrim could find the cat, I told myself, and retrieve it since, as a musician, he was free to come and go within the palace.

‘Your
brother
? How should I know?' She shrugged peevishly. ‘On board the barge, I expect. We are going down to the reed marshes. The Syrian ambassador wishes to hunt. There will be musicians, I suppose. No
potters
, though.' She turned her back on me, haughty and serene in the face of my agitation.

I retraced my steps home, sunk in despair. I found Father singing as he washed, blithe and excitable as a child on the morning of a festival. I told him what had happened, and he was delighted. ‘Aha! The queen bee carries the poison back to the hive and poisons all her drones! Excellent! Excellent!'

I crammed my anger away like a sail into a basket. Anger would not achieve anything. Instead, I took myself over to the Temple of Aten and asked the priests to perform a ritual prayer for me. ‘
O Aten, let her not die! Reach down your sunny hand and protect the divine family
!'

But I could not sit idly by and wait. If there was to be a boat trip to the reed marshes, the palace would be largely empty of people. I might just be able to get inside the royal quarters and find the cat. I went down to the quayside to watch the royal family embark – to make certain of them being out of the way.

The great cedarwood barge threw the shadow of its long, bowed shape across the waterfront, the river bubbling and hissing past the hull, the oarsmaster shouting orders to the crew. Under a canopy near the prow, I caught sight of Ibrim seated on a woollen cushion, with his hand lyre. I threw up my arms to catch his attention – forgetting his blindness. There was absolutely no chance of reaching him.

A crowd had gathered, as crowds always did, to see the king and queen. By the time I had pushed my way through to the front, Akhenaten, Nefertiti and the six princesses had come gliding down to the wharf and were climbing aboard, while the crowd called out blessings and praises, and bowed down reverentially.

I forgot to bow. My eyes were fixed on Queen Nefertiti, glorious in her blue crown banded with gold, her white linen wrapper, her golden sandals. In the crook of her arm, its eyes still plugged with clay, sat the little Nile-blue faience cat. She had brought her daughter's present with her from the palace!

Among the crowd, I saw my father's face, gloating, utterly delighted with himself. The royal barge pulled out from the quay, and around it a flotilla of little papyrus boats and coracles bobbed like lambs around a ewe. The faithful were always eager for a glimpse of the pharaoh, the living god.

An empty skiff bumped against the quayside at my feet. That was it! That was what I had to do – go after the royal barge! Father had to come, too.

Somehow, I plucked him out of the crowd and got him into the boat before he could refuse. He did not understand what he was doing there, and clung to the sides chanting the prayer against crocodiles and bleating dismally about my rowing.

Soon, most of the flotilla of little boats peeled off one by one, and turned back to
el-Amarna, but I kept on plying the single oar at the stern, riding the current, riding the glossy wake which marked out the path taken by the royal barge.

Downstream, the reedbeds make a dark cage of stems against which everything is in silhouette, and colours merge into a single shadowy green haze. Widgeon and teal break cover and dart into the sky. There is a continuous singing throb of frogs, and the occasional bubbling up of gas from rotting vegetation below water. Bulrushes form, for mile upon mile, a guard of honour to the little boats which nose and butt among them. Mosquitoes drone, and fish nibbling at the reed stems set the brown velvet rush-tips swaying. There are water snakes, too.

Amidst this lovely turquoise world, Queen Nefertiti, the great queen, the beautiful one, cradled on her knees a faience cat that was aswarm inside with asps. A single bite from any one, and she would be dead within hours.

My papyrus skiff chafed and bumped against the moored barge. Some of the king's guests, mayors and Syrians, were disembarking into skiffs and starting to
hunt for birds deep among the reedbeds. One man would stand in the prow with a handful of throwing sticks, knocking down birds scared out of hiding by slaves wading thigh-deep and slapping the water.

But the pharaoh did not disembark. The royal family did not hunt, never went hunting.

‘What kind of man does not hunt?' sneered my father, and not for the first time. ‘Look, son, can you see? He's half woman, that one, with his fat rump and his big—'

‘
Be quiet, Father
!' I hissed. ‘If he doesn't look like you and me, it's because he's half god.'

Harkhuf rose unwisely to his feet and came at me down the boat. I shouted for him to sit down. The skiff rocked wildly. He struck his head sharply against the beetling wooden hull of the royal barge, and sat down abruptly, stunned into silence. He looked up just as a handful of pomegranate seeds landed on his shoulder, apparently out of the sky.

The commotion had drawn attention to us. The pharaoh was leaning over the side,
now, holding half a pomegranate; he hailed us genially. ‘Harkhuf? Is it you? What brings you here?'

Father did not answer. Someone had to. Someone had to say something. I stood up. ‘O King, we are ashamed to admit it!' I stammered. Father shot me a look of such hatred that I thought he might throw me to the crocodiles before the day was over. ‘I told my father how Ibrim plays now for the great queen, the beautiful one. He wanted to hear for himself. Hear Ibrim playing in the pharaoh's presence, I mean. It was pride, O Lord King. Pride made us forget our manners and interrupt the peace of your afternoon!'

‘Harkhuf, my old friend!' laughed the King. ‘You had only to say! Come aboard, and we shall have music. Your son is indeed a credit to his father – both your sons!'

I thought my father might refuse, or blurt out something rash and insulting and fling himself into the river. I leaned forward, until my face was right in front of his. ‘Get aboard, or I shall tell the pharaoh what you did last night.'

Bewildered and undermined, Harkhuf allowed himself to be helped aboard, once again over the bulwarks of the cedarwood barge. His eyes, blood-shot from the brightness of the journey downstream, flickered to and fro along the deck. He looked hunted, penned in, guilty, but the pharaoh mistook it for simple embarrassment.

At the sound of our voices, Ibrim sat bolt upright on the cushions in the prow of the boat, trying to make sense of what was happening, what we were doing there. Pharaoh Akhenaten sat down on his own silken cushion, put his arm around Nefernefruaten-Nefertiti. The six little princesses – among them my beautiful Ankh – sat behind, in descending order of size, the cones of perfumed wax melting into their hair and down their bare necks, shoulders, throats. That sweet scent mixed with my fear for their lives made my head spin. I spread my hands on the hot deck to steady myself as Akhenaten called for Ibrim to begin playing.

I don't know what he played – whether happy or sad, a love lament or a dance. My
eyes and mind were on the Nile-blue pottery cat standing on the deck beside the queen's cushion. If I hurled myself towards it, I knew the bodyguard (although he stood at a discreet distance and looked half asleep) would snuff out my life as easily as snuffing out a candle.

The huntsmen had moved off deep into the rushes. The reedbeds were noisy again with their own droning music. But Ibrim's playing rose above it. He was happy. His music spoke happiness. And his happiness conveyed itself to the face of the great queen who, beautiful and serene as the Sphinx, watched him with cat-like concentration.

I looked sidelong at Father, and saw that he too had seen the faience cat. His eyes were fixed on it. His face was scarlet with the oppressive heat, and little beads of sweat were bursting through his wrinkled skin. Perhaps he was beginning to realise the enormity of what he had done.

‘That was sweetly played, as ever,' said the queen, as my brother laid down his lyre. ‘Come here, Ibrim.'

He rose and crossed the deck, unerringly,
to the source of her voice, kneeling down and bowing his face to the deck. She reached to one side. ‘A token of our pleasure,' she said. And put the faience cat into his outstretched hands.

I felt the hairs rise on my head. I felt my father beside me stiffen like a scorpion, back arched. I saw my brother return to his hassock and cradle the cat tenderly in his lap, exploring its features with his delicate, musician's fingers: the paws, the haunches, the coiled tail, the pointed nose, the face. His fingers stopped at the unexpected roughness of the mud-clogged eyes, and, with two twists of the little finger, he pushed the two clay plugs inside, into the hollow body of the Nile-blue cat.

I leaped along that deck like a flying fish, snatched the figurine out of his hand and flung it over the side. As the Nile-blue cat sank beneath the bile-brown Nile, little black shapes wriggled away into the water, but only I saw them go.

There was a stunned silence. Ibrim felt about him, open-mouthed, appalled that someone had robbed him of his precious
gift. Father slumped sideways against the cabin wall, as if asleep. I turned round to face the astonished gaze of the entire royal family.

‘I'm sorry!' I gulped. ‘I'm so sorry! But it was one of mine. I made it long ago. When I was an unbeliever in the one god! It was a likeness of Bast, you see! It was an idol to the goddess Bast. Not just a cat. An idol – an insult to Aten. I couldn't watch my brother kiss a pagan idol!'

Ibrim looked up to me, with his blind eyes, uncomprehending. Ankhesenpa-aten scowled at me, narrowing her painted eyes. But Nefernefruaten-Nefertiti inclined her head graciously and asked my father if he would care for a drink of water. The pharaoh reached out a hand and creamed some melted wax from his wife's shoulder to smear on his forehead. The mosquitoes were starting to bite.