He considered me. ‘No.’
Khety pushed his way to the window. ‘He’s chief detective with the Medjay. I’m assistant to Mahu, chief of police. Stop asking stupid questions and let us in.’
The porter slowly lowered his massive eyebrows again and, breathing more heavily now, pushed the authorities back through the grate. I pulled the papers from his sweaty grasp and hurried through the door he had opened.
We walked up some wide steps and found ourselves in a large kitchen yard. Ducks huddled in the dust, and mounds of vegetables lay in corners. We moved through the kitchen offices, past men chopping fast at tables or watching over great pans boiling on open fires, into a servery, and then a high-ceilinged and silent state dining room set with tables and stands. Carrying on with a confidence we had to show but did not feel, we passed through double doors and found ourselves in a vast, high, central-pillared hall. Massive slabs of burnished sunlight lay across the highly polished floors. Doors gave off this hall to many smaller rooms. The silence seemed rich with power. From ducks in a yard to the polished halls of authority in a few moments: such was the strange adjacency of things in this place.
Then through a closed door I heard Akhenaten’s voice raised in anger, and a second voice, powerful but quiet, as if calming a child, but with an undertow of menace. I knew the voice, but could not place it. We edged closer to try to overhear the conversation. Akhenaten’s voice came again, insistent, demanding, uncompromising; the other sounded like he was asking for something impossible, or something, at least, that Akhenaten could or would not assent to. I just about made out ‘challenging my authority…public humiliation’, then a word I could not catch-‘weakness’ perhaps? Then ‘intelligence reports indicate…opportunity we need to shut down now,’ and then a tense silence, as if the conversation was now being whispered. Finally, a door slammed shut.
Khety looked at me. He had heard these fragments too. After a moment or so of total silence the door slammed open again and the magisterial figure of Ramose in fine, impressive clothes swept out. He walked away fast, obviously furious.
Suddenly we were surrounded. Guards appeared from between the columns and threw us down on the ground with excessive force, shouting for us not to move. I heard the footsteps stop, turn and approach me. Ramose’s feet halted at my face, which was pressed to the cold stone of the floor. His long feet were blue-veined and gnarled in their gold and leather sandals.
‘What are you doing here? How did you get past security? Let him stand.’
The guards backed off at once. I stood and brushed myself down.
‘It wasn’t difficult. I mentioned before that the security here seems inadequate.’
His expression turned thunderous. Something about this man made me want to rile him, even though I knew it was a foolish impulse.
‘That is fine advice from a man who disappeared on a duck shoot.’
Then another voice spoke. Light and clear. ‘Please look into the ease with which he managed to find his way in here. What are things coming to in this land? Come,’ Akhenaten said to me, dismissing all others, including Ramose, who still looked furious, with a light wave.
We walked into a private room, and the doors closed softly behind us. But he quickly turned on me.
‘Such was the silence and lack of progress I assumed you were indeed dead. Which you might as well be. Speak.’
‘It does seem someone else here would prefer me to be dead.’
He stared at me. Then he beckoned me to follow him quickly out through an archway into a walled garden. We walked a little way down the path until we were some distance from the building.
‘The palace was built to guard me, but it is also a listening device. One notices the slightest thread of cool air from time to time, seeming to come from nowhere-and that tells me there is a tiny gap in the wall so slight as to be invisible yet so powerful that words and information pour away into the world. Words are very powerful, but also very dangerous.’
We sat opposite each other on two wooden chairs, our knees almost touching. The heat was shocking. Sweat burst out of me. He looked as comfortable as a lizard.
I informed him of the identity of the dead girl. I pointed out that this identification was a major discovery with several important implications, not least that it suggested the Queen was not dead. To this he gave little reaction other than a quick sideways nod of the head. I described the horror of Tjenry’s murder, then the hunt and the attempt on my life, but held back from naming Mahu directly. I left him to deduce that information. But I made it clear there were forces within his city that were hunting me down. He was suddenly, mercurially, annoyed.
‘The days are passing like water through your hands, and you sit here telling me nothing. All you have achieved so far is to make enemies. And you have told me nothing certain about the whereabouts or fate of the Queen, or who has taken her.’
I let him simmer for a moment, then I said, ‘I am closer to solving the mystery than before. But I need further permissions and, with them, certain protections.’
‘Such as?’ he snapped.
‘I would like to interview the Queen Mother. And your daughters.’
‘Why? Do you think my own mother has kidnapped my wife?’
I pushed my argument. It was all I could do. ‘I need to speak to everyone who may know something, or may have noticed something which they did not think to be important. I am trying to trace the tracks of our mystery in the dust of the past. All clues are vital.’
He pondered this for a moment, then made up his mind decisively. ‘I will grant this. But remember my promise to you. Fail, and you and your family will suffer accordingly. For the last time I say to you: your time is running out.’
I was saved from having to reply by a light tap-tap-tap, the sound of someone approaching with a stick. Up the path came a young boy. He was the striking image of Akhenaten, from the charismatic, angled face and thin body to the exquisite crutch tucked under his arm. His gaze passed slowly over me. I experienced a slight shiver. He looked like an old soul in a child’s twisted body.
Akhenaten nodded coolly at the boy, who gazed at us both then swung himself away with a practised confidence and elegance that implied a small lifetime of infirmity. I could hear the crutch counting out his steps as he moved away into the echoey chamber beyond. Akhenaten made no comment on this strange appearance.
‘I will give you your permissions,’ he reiterated. ‘You may meet the Queen Mother and my girls this evening. And I will make one suggestion.’ I waited. ‘I have created many alliances and many friendships, but inevitably I also have many enemies. You can imagine who they are. Disaffected Priests from the redundant cults. The old Karnak families. Theban nobles whose corrupt fortunes are diverted now towards this city’s meaningful vision. And if I have these enemies, imagine how much more they must hate the Queen. A powerful man in command of the world is one thing; a powerful woman is quite another. And now I must move on. I would like you to attend the presentation of Meryra in the Great Temple. To see how far we have come in the direction of truth. He is a most trusted servant and the only Priest besides ourselves who is granted the honour of interceding between the world and the god. All will see him honoured.’
My heart sank. I accompanied him back inside, and there waiting for us was Parennefer. Charming, chatty, powerful Parennefer. He bowed low to Akhenaten, who instructed him to accompany me to the presentation and left without uttering a farewell. We remained with our heads bowed respectfully for several moments.
‘Well,’ said Parennefer laconically, ‘I hear you’ve been a busy man.’
21
Parennefer took Khety and me back to the main open courtyard, where we waited for the royal procession to gather and organize itself. The last servants and late officials hurried into their places, the guards took their positions, and then, with a beating of the drums and a skirl of reed pipes, the whole group made its way back across the courtyard and up the stairs to the Window of Appearances between the palace and the Great Temple. In the road below, a great crowd was waiting and chanting in the sun. Akhenaten, dressed now in a glorious sash embroidered with cobra-heads and fringed in a multitude of colours, passed down gifts of collars and dishes rings to the lesser members and dignitaries of the gathered population. There was a young girl with him, dressed in similar clothes. ‘That is Meretaten, the oldest princess. She takes her mother’s place today.’ Parennefer nodded meaningfully.