‘This is a bit late for you,’ said the younger one, clapping Khety on the shoulder. ‘Still working? And who’s this?’
‘We’ve business on the authority of Akhenaten.’
There was a moment of uncertainty between the guards.
‘Your permissions?’ said the older one.
I took them from my case without speaking.
He glanced over the papyrus, and shook his head slowly as he puzzled over them. Eventually he nodded. ‘Go on then.’ He looked me over, noting the bow. ‘You must leave that here. No unauthorized weapons in the palace.’
I had no choice but to hand it over.
‘Take care of it. You realize its value, I hope?’
‘I’m sure it was very expensive, sir.’
And with that we passed into the palace’s main court, contained by high mud-brick walls. The court itself reminded me of the columned halls of Thebes, except that this was open, with small groves of trees planted within. Khety knew where he was going, and we moved ahead through the shadows cast by the moonlight, trying to be as silent as the proverbial thieves.
‘This place is enormous!’ I whispered.
‘I know. In the centre are the Halls of the Festivals and the private shrines. The north side consists of offices, residences and storerooms. In truth, everyone complains about the accommodations. They say everything’s too small and it’s all falling apart already. The plaster’s cracking and crumbling, and the insects are everywhere. They say the wood is cheap, painted to look expensive, and it’s already a feast for the beetles.’
Through hall after columned hall, we made our way onwards. Everything seemed deserted, silent. Sometimes we heard faint voices, and once we hid ourselves behind a stone column while a trio of men passed by, deep in earnest discussion. Many other rooms gave off the central halls, but all seemed uninhabited.
‘Where is everyone?’
Khety shrugged. ‘The city is built for a great population. Not everyone is here yet. Many have yet to be born who will inhabit these halls and offices. And don’t forget, they’re anticipating a huge influx of people for the Festival.’
We came to the edge of a lovely courtyard garden, rich with cool night scents. I looked down and saw that the floor had been painted with a matching scene depicting a pool surrounded by blue and silver marsh flowers and plants.
‘Here we are again, walking on the water.’
Khety looked down. ‘Oh yes,’ he said, surprised.
‘What is it with these people and their river scenes?’ I asked.
‘Aten’s creation. They need to see it everywhere.’
We walked across it anyway, and came to a great door. It was beautifully panelled, and within it was a smaller door, and within that a smaller shutter the size of a little window. The mural beneath our feet showed nothing but still water. Khety knocked quietly on the shutter. We waited, and again I experienced the prickling sensation that we were being watched. I looked around. There was nothing to be seen. Then the shutter was opened from within.
‘Show your faces,’ said an odd, strange-pitched voice.
Khety gestured for me to approach the shutter, and as I did so a strong light shone directly into my eyes. Then the little door swung open on silent hinges and a patch of light fell onto the floor. I stepped into it, and through the portal.
Inside, the light continued to dazzle me. I held my hands up to shield my eyes. I seemed to see now a multiplication of little lights, a repetition of small moons, all shifting about. Suddenly I realized they were decorated papyrus lanterns bobbing and turning on slender reed stems. And holding these lanterns were girls. Pretty young girls. The lantern directly in front of me was lowered and I saw a face, large-boned but elegant, with painted lashes and mouth, and skin whitened thickly with powders. And a body dressed in the most elaborate costume yet belonging, in stature, to a prize-fighter or a cart-driver.
‘It’s rude to stare,’ she said. The voice matched the body, not the face.
‘Forgive me.’
‘I appreciate your interest.’ She slurred the last word as if she were licking it off a plate.
‘Good evening. We’re with the city Medjay. We need to interview the women of the Harem.’
‘At this hour?’
‘It doesn’t matter what time it is.’
She looked annoyed. ‘Which women do you mean? We have all kinds of women here: seamstresses, dressers, women of the right hand, dancers, musicians, right through to the foreign parties. I don’t think any of them would want to see you at this hour.’
‘Oh? Let’s see. I know one of them is missing. Vanished. A very special girl. A kind of mirror. Her sisters will know what I mean. They must be worried. Frightened, probably. It’s worse not to know what’s happened, don’t you think?’
She looked at me intently, her big face furrowing. And then she let us in.
‘She’s a eunuch!’ whispered Khety.
‘I know,’ I whispered back. I’ve seen everything Theban nightlife has to offer, all the lower depths of the clubs and dens, and the other places men go to realize and enact their most secret desires. Boys as women, women as men, men with men, women with women.
She walked ahead of Khety and me and the girls followed, giggling and whispering, their lanterns jiggling and bouncing as they skipped along. What with the strangeness of the surroundings and the constantly dancing lights and shadows, I soon lost my sense of direction as the passage turned left, right, right, left…We walked ever deeper into this dark labyrinth, passing empty reception rooms full of unoccupied couches and heaped cushions, low workrooms where little figures sat hunched, stitching by close lamplight and ruining their eyesight, silent laundry courts where washing bowls were stacked and white linen dried on endless racks, shut offices, and dark sleeping quarters where tired women came and went in different states of dress, their hair down. The eunuch stepped lightly, elegantly, ahead of us, occasionally glancing back slyly to make sure we were still following.
At last we came to another door. The girls gathered around us, their lanterns and chatter finally resolving into stillness and quiet.
‘We can go no further. We are not permitted.’
The eunuch knocked at the door, whispered urgently, then ushered me in. Khety was not allowed to follow. The last I saw of him he was standing in a pool of light with a sad entourage of pretty girls smiling up at him. Then a thick curtain was drawn across the portal, and he was gone.
‘Good evening.’ Her voice was light, amused, intelligent. ‘Forgive the girls, they’re silly and over-excited. We don’t usually see visitors at this hour, but I’ve been expecting someone.’
She was dressed in a pleated outfit, the whole garment seeming to shape itself to her body, giving prominence to her naked right breast, which was beautifully displayed. Golden sandals on her immaculate feet, her shining and perfumed hair hanging loose. She looked not unlike the woman I had seen carved and painted everywhere in the city.
Her name was Anath. We were in a comfortable entertaining room, with elaborately wrought high-backed wooden chairs inlaid and gilded, and finished with lions’ feet. On a stand between us lay a board set out for a game of senet, the board itself a beauty, its thirty squares decorated with ivory.
‘Do you play?’ she asked.
‘At home. With my wife and my daughters. My oldest is smarter than me. She beats me often now. She remembers all the moves, she thinks through every permutation, and she almost always throws exactly what she needs.’
‘Girls are more intelligent than boys. They have to think for themselves from the day they are born.’
We sat down, and I told her everything. As I spoke, a few other women gradually drifted out of the shadows and into the room, one by one taking up positions in chairs and on heaped cushions to listen to me. I tried to focus, to attend to the face of the woman before me. She was listening intently.