Some of the ships were carrying timber, stone, fruits and corn. From one, amid a fury of calls, cries and trills that made up an anxious music, appeared howling monkeys on strings, gibbering and shrieking with confused excitement, cages of coloured crying birds, trained hawks on gauntlets, and in a strong box a large baboon, staring out at this crude, noisy world with dignified contempt. Gazelles, antelope and zebra slipped and shivered on their neat hooves as they were roughly manhandled down the gangplanks. From another ship came a troupe of pygmies from Punt executing quick movements, walking on their hands, tossing one another through the air for the delight of the crowds.
All of this for the Festival. The gifts, tributes and supplies of food and drink and entertainment from the Empire and beyond were starting to arrive in the city to support and satisfy the appetites of a unique congregation of the rich and powerful. It was an event none would relish but to which all would have been deeply offended not to be invited. To be seen here, in state, participating among the great powers was a signifier of high status. And each king would bring his family, his retinues, his ambassadors and civil servants, their officials, their secretaries, their assistants, their assistants’ assistants, and then ranks of servants, in their own hierarchies. The city still did not seem ready for such a vast swelling of its population, and I imagined the crowds becoming so great that people would have to sleep in the desert, in the tombs above the city, or in the fields, like a plague of locusts.
There was a noise behind me, and Khety’s head appeared through the trap door. He joined me on the parapet.
‘Crazy, isn’t it, a jubilee festival now?’ he said. ‘I mean, it hasn’t been thirty years since the beginning of the reign.’
‘Akhenaten desperately needs to assert his status and confirm the new capital,’ I responded. ‘And he knows that in a crisis one must celebrate a festival or start a war. Even if he refuses to accept it, his chief advisers know things are in danger of falling apart in the country, and outside it. He has domestic and foreign problems, and the harvest last year was poor again. People are not being paid regularly. They’re worried, and if he’s not careful they’ll get angry. He needs to demand homage in public from everyone, not least his internal enemies and foreign allies, and to reassert his territorial claims and rights over the kingdoms of the Empire. But this whole spectacle will be undermined unless the Queen is restored. No wonder he’s so desperate.’
The prospect of a major celebration brought back memories for me. ‘I was a young child during the last jubilee, under Amenhotep. People said it was unlike any other witnessed before. He ordered the Birket Habu lake to be created near the palace where he and the gods and the royal family could process on barges. Can you imagine, Khety, an artificial lake of that size? All the years of labour, all the lives sacrificed for one day of festivities. My father held me up on his shoulders so I could see above the crowds. It was all happening a long way away, but I remember a giant crocodile cutting through the water, its tail moving slowly from side to side, its eyes moving to and fro, glittering as if packed with broken glass, and its jaws, with great white teeth, opening and closing. Of course it had been constructed out of wood and ivory and some kind of clever mechanics, and built on the bed of a boat. But to my eyes it was Sobek-Ra, the crocodile god. I was terrified! And then came Amenhotep, on a huge gold barge rowed by many slaves, seated on a high throne, wearing the two crowns. And the gods, hidden in cabins, travelling on their golden boats from the east to the west. I could hardly breathe. Strange, the things that compel us. Now I would look at the same spectacle and see illusion, make-believe, a show. I’d see nothing but the crude mechanisms, the wealth and the engines of labour that work the scenes of the spectacle. Am I better off now, or was it better when I believed?’
There was no useful answer to this question, and besides we had other thoughts to preoccupy our minds. We looked out at the panorama of activity below us. Among the ships just docking I noticed one remarkably fine specimen, distinguished by its elegant shape, the glossy perfection of its costly woods and inlays, and the glorious richness of its sails-a military ship of the highest class. Clearly this was transporting a VIP. Dockers caught the ropes cast out by its sailors, and deftly manoeuvred the ship into its place. Among the figures of the working sailors in their uniforms appeared another of stature, surrounded by officials. I was too far away to see him well, but he was accorded the utmost respect: there was a military reception and an official guard awaiting his arrival, no doubt sweltering under their umbrellas as they waited for the tedious business of docking to be accomplished. The sound of a fanfare came quietly but clearly across the hot, thick air as the mystery man stepped down into the throng.
Khety shaded his eyes. ‘Horemheb.’
I gazed at this figure who had suddenly assumed a great importance in my mind. As I watched, there was a moment of ceremony between the reception committee, the brisk, no-nonsense man, and the retainers who followed him at a respectful distance down the gangplank. Then he moved off through the crowds, his armed escort beating back with sticks and batons any careless person who did not instantly bow his head and make way.
Khety, who could pass unnoticed in a crowd more freely than I could, departed to speak to his brother and find a means of access to the archives. After he left, I stayed watching on the roof as the cavalcade of materials and people continued to flow into the unfinished, soon to be overwhelmed city. And above us all the birds, circling; and beyond that the infinite opposition of the desert. I thought of my girls, and Tanefert. What were they all doing now? Were my girls asking about their father? Was their mother making up some story with her rich invention? Or were they just running around, or reading, or executing new acrobatic movements over and over and over until something was knocked flying?
As I sat there pondering the imponderables of my life, a frail figure emerged onto one of the nearby roofs. She shaded her eyes and looked around, and when she noticed me she made a polite, deferential bow. I nodded back. It would do no harm, I thought, to discover more about this quarter of the city, not least because secrets and information are not the preserve of palaces alone, but are found equally in the most dismal of shanties. So I stepped over the parapet, making my way cautiously over the crumbling roofs-in places the dry reeds, bundled and plaited together, which served as roofing material had already broken or given way-and joined her on the opposite parapet. Her skin was darker than mine, her features nomadic, her dress clean but poor, adorned with a few trinkets of traditional style. She might have been no more than twenty years old, but hard labour had aged her well beyond that: as always the hands, with their callused skin as tough as hide, gnarled knuckles and broken nails, told the story. Still, there was life and humanity in her smile. We greeted each other.
‘I am from Mut,’ she said, by way of introduction.
I knew of it-a desert settlement to the south-west, near the Dakhla Oasis.
‘I’ve never been there, but I enjoy the wine,’ I said.
She nodded without comment.
‘Why did you come to the city?’ I asked her.
‘Ah. The city.’ She shaded her eyes and shook her head slowly. ‘My husband overheard a wonderful story someone was telling in the market, of the new capital, about the need for workers. He came home and told me, “We can escape, make something of ourselves.” I was afraid to leave everything I knew and cared for to set out on such a dangerous journey. We’d heard other tales of gangs of convicts and even the soldiers of the Amun Priests robbing travellers by night. But he wanted to go, and there was nothing for us where we were. So we surrendered all we possessed to a guide, who guaranteed safe passage. He told us about a green city of towers, gardens and ample work for all. Even I was beguiled by his words. We left, with our two young children. Parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters-we left them all behind knowing we were unlikely ever to see them again. We were five families who set out together that evening.’