Egypt (30 page)

Finally, the knot binding my hands loosened. I worked my wrists against each other, enough to open up a length of rope. I ran forward, tearing it off. Prince Zannanza's attackers weren't expecting me. I grabbed the sword of one of them, kicked the others away, and found myself standing over the beaten body of the Prince, screaming at them like a Theban street fighter. The courtyard was silenced. Several of Inanna's men surrounded me, drawing out their swords, moving around me, closing in, ready to go for the kill. It was better to attack than defend. I clashed swords with the two in front, while trying to defend my back from the others. Prince Zannanza cowered next to me, trying to keep clear of the slicing blades. I managed to score a cut on the arm of one of the attackers, and with a renewed roar of rage he went for me, while the others backed off to watch and enjoy the spectacle. We fought across the courtyard, and the crowd made way for us. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Prince Zannanza being bound and tied again. I was for a moment off-guard; my opponent's sword suddenly sliced towards me sideways. I jumped back, and then, as his sword carried on through its arc, I saw my chance and plunged mine into his undefended chest. The roar of the crowd faded. The man retched up blood. My sword came reluctantly out of his chest. The man still was not dead. He stared up at me with contempt, choking and muttering, struggling to breathe.

Inanna was suddenly standing beside me.

‘You must finish what you began,' she said.

I had no choice. I raised my sword once more, and thrust it down into the man's chest again. He scrabbled on the ground, muttering, as if trying to claw back the last moments of his life, until finally he let go, and died.

Inanna appraised me with new interest. Several of her men ran forward to apprehend me, but she shook her head. I thought I saw a touch of amusement in her wild eyes. She raised her three-bladed knife and held it close to my face, as if daring me to attack her. Her expression was enigmatic. The men started to chant again. But suddenly she began to dance and chant, whirling in circles, clapping her hands, and crying out, invoking a Goddess or a spirit of darkness. The men shouted encouragement. And then just as suddenly she stopped, right in front of me, and shouted something in a language I could not understand. And then she kissed me full on the lips.

Sunlight broke in splinters through the slats of the battered wooden door. We slept or dozed on piles of filthy straw, and were thrown only gnawed bones and dirty cooking pots from which to eat the burned scraps; there was a jar of stale water in the corner, and a cracked chamber-pot. We had not washed for several days now, and already the chamber-pot in the corner was overflowing.

Nevertheless, my stomach rumbled incongruously. Hunger is no respecter of disaster. Prince Zannanza still lay turned to the wall, hiding his disfigured face. The ruin of his beauty seemed to cause him more distress than the fear of losing his own life. Nakht had been unable to console him. Simut stirred, and groaned quietly, and raised himself slowly to sit next to me. I passed him a dish of the stale water and he drank slowly.

‘We're in trouble,' he said, quietly, wiping his mouth.

I nodded in agreement.

‘No one knows where we are,' I replied.

‘Even if they did, what could they do?' he said. ‘We could be held here for months, and meanwhile, Ay must be dead by now, Horemheb will march on Thebes, take power from the Queen, and there's not a thing we can do about it… We've failed.'

We were interrupted by voices outside the door. The door slammed open, and a couple of Inanna's henchmen entered the cell. Prince Zannanza huddled deeper into his corner. They made some extravagant joke about the stink. They were munching on legs of roasted meat, luxuriating in the good food and our hunger. We watched them with hatred. When they'd chewed off as much as they wanted, they threw us the bones–as if we were dogs. Prince Zannanza grabbed one quickly, and began gnawing the tiny scraps that remained. I picked up another bone, and threw it back with all my strength in their faces.

‘Bring us food fit for human beings,' I shouted. They just laughed. So I grabbed one of the discarded cooking pots they'd thrown into the cell, and advanced on them, whirling it around my head. They retreated, laughing, and slammed the door shut. I threw the pot, but it just clattered uselessly against the door.

‘Why has that murdering bitch taken a shine to you?' asked Simut, darkly.

‘It's not my idea of a good time,' I muttered. ‘Next time they come back, we could attack them together, make a break for it, steal four good horses from under their noses, and be out through that gateway in a moment.'

‘And then come back with an Egyptian division and raze this place to the ground, and her in it…' added Simut, for good measure.

‘We're locked in a cell, we have no weapons, we have no knowledge of this valley, and even if we did escape, we would be hunted down very quickly,' said Nakht.

‘So what do
you
suggest?' asked Simut angrily.

Nakht stared at him.

‘I suggest you remember who you're talking to,' he said. ‘I am still in command of this mission.'

Simut said nothing.

‘They're going to kill us all,' said Prince Zannanza, quietly, from his corner. Simut rolled his eyes, but Nakht, once more the diplomat, turned to console the Prince.

‘You are far too important for that. You will be ransomed, I assure you. The Queen of Egypt will soon know we are missing. I was to have sent fast messengers at every stage of our journey, to keep her informed of our progress. She will interpret our silence, and she will have some knowledge of where we disappeared.'

Simut and I exchanged a brief look. There was absolutely nothing Ankhesenamun could do to save us. Our mission was secret. She had no troops to send out to rescue us. Only Horemheb had his divisions in the north. And help from him would spell death. We were on our own.

‘Your father will also know we are missing,' continued Nakht to the Prince. ‘He will have had spies prepared along our route, to watch your progress. He will be very angry. He will come to rescue you.'

Zannanza stared at Nakht disconsolately.

‘My father despises me. I appal my brothers. None of them will rescue me. They will simply cultivate the advantage of my death for their own ends. The Crown Prince was always opposed to this alliance. Now he will be able to claim my father was wrong to trust Egypt. The King will be shamed before his people, and he will easily be goaded into adopting my brother's plan to renew Hittite attacks upon Egypt. But what does that matter to me? For I will soon be dead.'

And he turned again to face the wall. He was right. If any harm came to the Prince, then the Hittite kingdom would make good on its threat and take revenge against Egypt. The war of the last thirty years would seem like the prelude to a far greater calamity. Egypt would be held responsible. We would all be held responsible.

‘We are still alive for a reason,' I said.

‘And what is that?' asked Simut.

‘There are two possibilities. There are two men who would wish to destabilize the prospect of peaceful relations between the two empires by means of the Prince's death. One is Horemheb himself…'

‘Horemheb would never commission the Army of Chaos to undertake such an act of kidnapping and assassination. If he had knowledge of our mission, and our return route, he would simply do it himself,' said Nakht.

‘I agree. So that leaves Aziru,' I said. ‘Aziru hates Egypt because his father was executed by Akhenaten. Aziru is the King of Amurru. Aziru has changed allegiance from Egypt to the Hittites. Aziru has almost certainly maintained secret contacts with the Army of Chaos. He wants us.'

‘Aziru will be dead by now. My request to the Hittites was absolutely clear,' said Nakht.

‘But how can you be sure the Hittites have done what they said they would do? What if they have not assassinated Aziru? The Crown Prince proved himself a strong ally of his, and the Crown Prince now has the upper hand with his father,' I said. ‘Aziru is probably still alive. And if he is…' I left the thought unspoken.

Nakht's face was dark. He was thinking.

‘It seems to me we have one chance left to save ourselves,' he said eventually.

‘And what's that?' asked Simut.

‘Inanna's interest in Rahotep. She likes you. So we must consider how to play the throw of the dice to our best advantage, for it may make the difference between success and failure. Between life and death.'

‘You're asking me to
seduce
her?' I said, astonished.

‘Not asking.
Ordering
.'

Simut guffawed with amazement at the idea. But Nakht was staring at me seriously, coldly.

‘You know my wife. You know my family. You cannot ask me to do such a thing… It would be a betrayal of all I hold dear,' I stammered.

‘I am not ordering you to sleep with her. But her attraction to you is a prime vulnerability. We must exploit it. You must find out anything you can about her plans for us. Above all, it would give you a chance to persuade her of the advantage of doing a deal with Egypt for our safe return. She is avaricious. She wants only the best return for her possessions. She might be persuaded to take a better deal than Aziru–if he is alive–could offer. But be quick. Whether Aziru or Horemheb, or some other, as yet unknown person, is behind our kidnapping, they will soon be arriving to claim the prize,' he said. ‘And either way, at that point I believe we will be killed.'

I called out Inanna's name all afternoon, and I was taken to her for the first time that night. Soon after dark, her henchmen came, kicked Simut and Nakht aside, and dragged me to my feet. I was stripped, doused with water, washed by two women, and thrown a tunic to wear. My hands were tied behind my back, and I was led to a place in the centre of a chamber, and left to wait.

Oil lamps had been lit, creating a low light that was almost romantic. Incense burned somewhere in the shadows. A strange assembly of divine statues from different lands had been arranged around the walls. And then the woman who killed men, rode a stallion, cut faces with knives, and licked blood, entered, wearing a fine red linen tunic. Down her back fell an ornate cloak of feathers, like the wings of a strange bird. The tunic dipped at the front: her breasts were naked. Her wild curly hair had been braided and coiled with gold thread into a kind of crown. Gold bangles glistened on her wrists and ankles. She walked around me, assessing me, smiling almost coyly. I felt like a slave for sale. She cut the ropes that bound my hands, and motioned for me to sit on a stool. Then she sat down on a golden throne and set her feet upon two carved, beautifully inlaid, wooden lions. To either side of her were two large statues of birds with round faces, alert eyes, and sharp beaks–much like our human-headed bird, our
ba
spirit. I sat before her like a worshipper. A servant wafted an ostrich-feather fan over her.

The trays before us were piled high with roasted meats, vegetables, bunches of superb grapes and pomegranates. She cut a leg from a roasted bird and offered it to me on the end of her knife. I was ravenous, and although I was disgusted to be eating with her, I had to do it. Time was running out. I accepted the meat, and tried to eat slowly.

‘They say I was born with a knife between my teeth. I made my first kill when I was ten years old,' she said quietly.

‘And what did you kill?' I asked, assuming she meant animals on a hunt.

‘Sometimes travellers and merchants risked the paths into our valley. So I waited, and soon enough, along came a caravan. They thought I was just a child. They were stupid. They didn't take me seriously. I took a merchant hostage, with my blade to his throat, and I made the others give me gold and a horse in exchange for their master's life.'

‘And then?'

‘And then I slit his throat,' she said calmly, and took another careful bite of her meat.