‘A body,’ said Tjenry. ‘A body has been found.’
11
She lay cradled in a low dune, some way into the Red Land behind the northern edges of the city, among the desert altars to the east. A fine second skin of grey sand had been brushed over her and into the folds of her magnificent clothes-long gold tunic, fine gold necklace, gold slippers, linen undershirt-by the light attention of the wind. She was turned on her side, her legs drawn up, her arms holding each other like a sleeping girl; and facing the west, the setting sun, I noticed, as in a traditional burial. It was all wrong. Her stillness. The empty muffled sound of the desert, like a shuttered room with nothing living in it. The heat of near midday, which shimmered over us all. The offending sweet stink of recently killed flesh. And above all, the furious tormented excitement of flies. I knew this sound too well.
Her face was turned considerately to the sands. Holding a cloth to my mouth and nose, with Mahu, his slavering and overheated dog, and Khety standing at a distance, I gently touched her shoulder. She unrolled awkwardly towards me, the reluctant movement telling me at once that death was likely to have taken place in the small hours of the night. Then I confess I jumped back. Where her face should have been was a seething mask of flies that, conjured instantly by my disturbance, shimmered up into the air around my own head, and then reformed again, a barbarian hive thick with the buzz of intense devotion, upon the bloody remains of lips, teeth, nose and eyes. I heard Tjenry puking. Mahu remained still, casting a large and very sharp shadow over me as I crouched again by the corpse of the Queen whose glorious and famous face had been so brutally destroyed. I understood at once the extent and significance of the mutilation: this spectacular barbarity meant that the gods could not recognize her and she would never be able to speak her name when her shadow arrived in the Otherworld. She had been murdered in this life and in the next-a royal outcast of eternity. But something was not right. Why here? Why now?
‘I think you are out of a job.’
I looked up. Mahu’s face was hidden in deep shadow. There was no tone of victory in his voice, but he was right. The Queen was dead. I was too late. Her own death surely signalled mine. My thoughts reeled. Was this the end of everything already? I had hardly begun.
The peasant who had found her stood at a distance, trying not to look, trying not to exist. Mahu signalled for him to approach. Trembling, he did so. Without expression, as if he were an animal, without even the basest preliminaries of execution, Mahu’s curved sword whispered in an invisible arc through the thin air and the man’s thin neck. His severed head fell to the sand like a ball dropped out of its orbit, and his body sank instantly to its knees and collapsed. Blood pumped from his neck. The unholy priesthood of flies renewed their disgusting celebrations. The dog moved forward to sniff at the head. Mahu uttered a sharp command and it returned obediently, still panting, to its master’s feet.
Mahu looked at Khety, Tjenry and me, daring us to speak. My mind was racing like a crazed dog, driven on by fear. Suddenly a new thought flashed into my head.
‘This may not be the Queen,’ I said.
Mahu stared at me. ‘Explain that.’ He sounded nasty.
‘The body seems to be that of the Queen, but the face is destroyed. Our faces are our identities. Without one, how do we know for certain who is who?’
‘She is wearing royal clothes. That is her hair, that is her figure.’
There was tension in Mahu’s voice. Did he prefer her dead? Or did he just not want to be proved wrong by me?
‘Certainly those are her clothes. Yes, it seems to be her. Nevertheless, I need to examine the body and conduct a full investigation in order to confirm the identification.’
Mahu considered me, his gold eyes transfixed on mine. ‘You are struggling, Rahotep, like a fly in honey. Well, you had better get to work, quickly. If you are right, which seems impossible, then there is more to this than meets the eye. If you are wrong, which seems certain, and Akhenaten, his family and the whole world mourn the loss of the Queen, you know exactly what to expect.’
We took her body, covered with a cloth, on a cart to a private chamber of purification, in conditions of absolute secrecy. It was the coldest room that could be found. Its limestone walls were built into the earth and gave off a ghostly chill. The candle flames shivered silently in the sconces, giving light without heat. I found linen bandages stored in a cupboard; jars of dry natron, cedar oil and palm wine stood on shelves; iron hooks for removing brains, incision knives and small hatchets hung beneath. Along another wall were ranged canopic jars for organs, their lids decorated with images of the Sons of Horus. Along a third wall, propped up in a line like an identity parade, was a variety of rich men’s coffins decorated in gold and lapis, and above them shelves of mummy masks. And when I opened boxes I found, unusually, rank upon rank of glass eyes staring up at me, awaiting the sockets of the newly dead to allow them a vision of the gods.
There was a sudden commotion at the door: the Overseer of the Mysteries was demanding admittance to his office. When he saw Mahu he shut up instantly, and after a word from Tjenry he backed out, apologizing as he went. Mahu then turned to us. ‘There are guards outside. I want you to report to me within one hour.’ And he went, taking some of the room’s darkness and chill with him.
I turned to the body of the woman on the wooden embalmer’s table. The flies had moved on to other, richer feasts, and the ruins of her face-black and crimson and ochre, the eyes gone, the brow and nose shattered, the lips and mouth smashed-remained clear. In a few spots the brain itself was exposed. I examined the features of the injuries. Her jaw and forehead still bore the rough imprints and indentations of something like a large stone, but there seemed to be no other mortal injuries. So that was how she died. She would have seen her own death coming. A brutal and not especially quick ending.
I quickly poured a sufficient quantity of natron powder mixed with acid over the face, in order to eat away the ruined flesh and congealed blood and expose the bone structure and any remaining skin. While the natron did its work, I turned to Tjenry, who was staring at the corpse with a young person’s fascination.
‘What would we do without this powder? It is found on the shores of ancient lakes, and the wadis at Natrun and Elbak are the finest sources. It cleanses our skins and brightens our teeth and breath, yet it also makes glass possible. Is it not interesting how something may look like nothing but may have many powers?’
Tjenry was still looking uncertain about all these obviously new experiences. He did not seem interested in a discussion of the virtues of natron.
‘What a mess. Do you really think it’s not her?’
‘That remains to be seen. Indeed it seems to be, but there are many possibilities.’
‘But how will you know?’
‘By looking at what is there.’
We began at her feet. Her sandals were leather and gold. The soles of her feet were not cracked, and the skin was soft and clean. A woman of leisure. The bones of the ankles were neatly turned. Her toenails were painted red, but scuffed and scratched. There were dry smears of something on the sides of her feet.
‘Look.’
Tjenry moved his face closer to the foot.
‘What do you see?’
‘The nails are carefully manicured.’
‘But?’
‘But they are scuffed. The varnish here is marked. And I see here, on the outside of the little toes, scratches, and traces of blood and dust.’
‘Better. And from this we deduce what?’
‘A struggle.’
‘Yes, a struggle. This woman was dragged along against her will. But this we could anticipate. See among the toes? What do we find?’