Perhaps I was merely trying to repress my own sense of foolishness. I detest being caught out. We both sulked like children for a few minutes.
We were sitting in the shade of the courtyard protected from the sun by overhanging eaves and lengths of linen shades.
‘You understand the seriousness of the situation in which we find ourselves?’
Khety nodded. Once again, he knew everything.
‘You know the Instruction of Ptahhotep: “Do not take control of a matter whose ending you will not be able to control”? Well, that is exactly what we have no choice but to do. I’ll need you to enlighten me on all the background matter. I still can’t understand why you didn’t tell me before when you knew how much was at stake.’ He tried to interrupt but I put up my hand to silence him. ‘Yes, no doubt you were sworn to utmost secrecy. No doubt there were other, greater issues at stake. Now, I need to know about a safe house, and about the security measures for the Festival. Above all I need to deal with Mahu.’
‘How can I help?’
‘I want to pay a visit to the Medjay information archives. Can you help with that?’
‘Yes, but why?’
‘They hold information on everyone. On you, on me, on Ay, even on Mahu himself. We need to get deeper into the underworld of what’s happening here, so we have to know more about the plotters and conspirators and their secret histories.’
Khety thought it through. ‘I have a contact, a scribe. He could get us in and help us find the relevant documents.’
‘Can he be trusted?’
He grimaced. ‘He’s my brother.’
‘In these days no-one, not even one’s brother, can be trusted.’
‘He’s my younger brother.’
‘That makes it worse then: younger brothers often betray and murder their elders. Sibling rivalry.’
Khety just laughed. ‘He likes music and reading; he’s not interested in politics. He’d rather spend his time in the library. Trust me.’
Nefertiti entered the room. I confess I could not take my eyes from her. There was something incandescent about her presence.
‘This will not serve as a useful safe place for you both in the next days,’ she said. ‘However, Khety knows a house in the workers’ suburb-a secret location. I’m afraid it is not particularly comfortable. But I imagine no-one will think to seek you there. And I’m sure you can find a way to disguise yourselves among the arriving populations.’
It was a sensible suggestion. The poor are invisible to the rich.
‘We will be, as the saying goes, poor men in the house of the rich,’ I said.
There were no doors or windows to the outside world in the walls of this building. The only way out was down into the labyrinth again. So we bade a swift farewell and descended a set of winding stone stairs. This time plentiful lamps and rush torches illuminated the way. I noticed wonderful images on the walls-birds, animals and gardens lit up by an underworld sun and moon.
‘Khety, where are we?’
‘You remember when we went to the Queen’s House? And you sat in her chair and looked out across the river?’
The low fort on the far shore. He had known all along.
‘If you are smiling that smug little smile of yours again, Khety, I’m going to push you down these stairs.’
His laugh echoed away down several passageways that disappeared off into shadow. The last of the daylight slanted down to where we stood.
‘Well, as the adventurer said, “all paths lead somewhere”,’ he replied.
‘Very wise. But as I recall in that story the adventurer never returned home. Which of these takes us where we need to go?’
‘The passages are designed to trap intruders for ever. Fortunately, I know them like the back of my hand.’
He nodded towards one of them. We each took a torch in our hands and set off in silence among the strange company of our footfalls and shadows. Soon we came to a junction. Khety hesitated.
‘What?’
‘Just trying to remember the way.’
He set off with purpose in one direction, then suddenly stopped. I walked into him.
‘What now?’
‘Sorry, wrong way.’
‘And you’re the man who’s going to help me save the world.’
I knew we were under the river. Little gusts of hot wind, ghostly underworld breezes, tugged at the flames of our torches but could not extinguish them. I caught glimpses of more painted scenes on the walls, the spirits of the dead enjoying the delights of the Otherworld. We tell ourselves stories of happiness and liberty beyond the grave, but we build our temples and tombs in darkness, and frighten ourselves with fables of monsters and secret names. In the confident light of the torches and in Khety’s bright company, however, the passageways that had so alarmed me the previous night lost their power to conjure fear in my mind.
After some time walking in silence we came to a long set of stairs ascending towards a dark trap door. Slivers of light cut through the wooden planks like long knife blades. We listened carefully, but could hear only a kind of shuffling and a snuffling; something like slow, clumsy dancers. With infinite caution, Khety lifted the trap door. The light dazzled us after our time in the darkness. He looked out carefully, then pushed back the door, and we pulled ourselves up into the daylight.
The first thing that assailed me was the smell. Pigs. The rotting stink of old mud, old vegetables and pig-shit. They looked like a gathering of corrupt dignitaries, their undiscerning wobbly jaws not ceasing to chew as they observed us with only one question in mind: were we consumable? The sty was low, so we had to crouch as we hurried through it, holding our noses, trying without success to keep our feet out of the mess. We emerged into a fetid, narrow lane, detritus and human and animal shit gathering in the foul gullies to either side. Labourers were passing in crowds where the narrow passageway opened, some way along, on to a wider thoroughfare, and the noise of daily humanity from a better world washed over us. There was a doorway covered with a rotting tapestry directly opposite the sty, and we passed quickly across. We found ourselves in a hot, dusty storeroom piled high with rubbish, old jugs, jars, broken bits and pieces of everything. There was a further door that led into another room with two simple straw mattresses, a supply of water in a stone jar, and a box containing basic rations. A rickety old ladder with rungs missing led up to a door that gave on to the roof. Khety locked the front door from the inside.
‘Home sweet home,’ he said.
Inside another box we found workers’ clothes, simple bolts of rough cloth and cheap rope sandals, together with more middle-class but undistinguished clothing, from which we could fashion our appearances as required. But first I wanted to go up onto the roof to get my bearings. I quickly pulled a relatively clean cloth around my head and shoulders, and ascended the ladder. I pushed open the roof door and carefully looked out. It was a view of the city unlike any I had noticed before. A chaos of adjoining roofs made up, in their crazy, improvised pattern, a kind of small shanty town. It was no doubt home to many of the invisible poor who kept the city clean and working. The heat shimmered in the air, and nothing stirred. The whole place had the abandoned feel of mid-afternoon, but it seemed lifeless too, lacking the intense colours of drying fruit and vegetables, the chickens scratching in their enclosures, and the daily washing hung from lines which characterized the rooftops of Thebes. No leaping children here, just a few old women moving about desultorily, their heads bowed to their perpetual labour, rearranging tatty clothing as it dried on boards or on lines in the bleaching glare of the afternoon sun. No-one took any notice of me.
The best view was to the river, and in particular down to the long dock from which I had sailed with the hunting party only a few days ago. Now, however, instead of pleasure boats and singing young women, the whole dock was crowded with river traffic, and on the open water packs of boats jostled one another, waiting to land their various cargoes. It was like watching a slow, untidy battle from the curious and remote vantage of a fly.