Nick Drake - Tutankhamun - The Book of Shadows

I remembered the little girl I had met years before: full of petulance and frustration. And here was an elegant and accomplished young woman. Time itself seemed to be mocking me. Where had the years gone? Perhaps she had grown up very suddenly, too quickly, in the way people do when devastating change falls upon them in youth. I thought of my own girls, their ease with their changing lives and themselves. They had no need, thanks to the gods of fortune, for such strategy and appearance. But they too were growing up, growing away, into their own futures.

‘So you remember me,’ she murmured, as we walked.

‘You had a different name in those days,’ I replied, carefully.

She glanced away.

‘I have had little choice in the matter of myself. I was an awkward unhappy girl, never much of a princess, unlike my sisters; and now they are all dead, it turns out I must be so much more. I have been reinvented, but perhaps I have not yet felt worthy of the role for which I have been-appointed. Is that the word? Or destined?’

She sounded as if she were talking about a stranger, not about herself.

We arrived at a long pool of black water at the centre of the courtyard, with oil lamps placed at each corner. The moon was reflected there, lilting slowly in the water’s dream. The place felt romantic, and secret. We strolled along the pool’s edge. In some way I felt we were moving towards the heart of the matter.

‘My mother told me that if I was ever in real danger, I should call for you. She promised me you would come.’

‘And here I am,’ I replied quietly. I had sealed her mother’s memory in a box in the back of my mind. It was too potent, and too hopeless, to do anything else. And the fact that she was dead now made no difference, for she lived on where I had no power to control her, in my dreams.

‘And since you have called for me, and I am here, you must be in real danger.’

A fish broke the immaculate surface of the water, and concentric rings spread out, lapping silently at the pool’s walls. The moon’s reflection broke apart, and then slowly unified again.

‘I am concerned by signs. Portents…’

‘I am not a great believer in signs and portents.’

‘So I have heard, and that is important. We are too easily alarmed, my husband and me. We need someone with less superstition and less fear. I think of myself as modern, as a person not easily frightened by things that are not there. But I find it is not so. Perhaps this palace does not help. It is so vast and empty of life that the imagination populates it with everything it fears. A wind blows from the wrong direction, down from the Red Land, and already I sense malicious spirits stirring at the curtains. These rooms are too big to sleep in without fear. I keep the lamps lit all night, I rely upon magic, I clutch amulets like a child…It is ridiculous, for I am no longer a child. I cannot afford to indulge the fears of a child.’

She looked away.

‘Fear is a powerful enemy, but a useful friend.’

‘That sounds like something only a man could say,’ she replied, amused.

‘Perhaps you should tell me why you are afraid,’ I said.

‘I hear you listen well.’

‘That is not what my daughters tell me.’

‘Oh yes, you have daughters. A happy family…’

‘It is not always as simple as that.’

She nodded. ‘No family is simple.’

She paused, thinking.

‘I was married to my husband when we were both very young. I was older by a few years. But we were children, united by the state for the purposes of alliances of power. No one asked us if we wished it. Now we are brought out like statues for state occasions. We perform the rites. We make the gestures. We repeat the prayers. And then we are put back inside this palace. In return for this obedience, we are given luxuries and indulgences and privileges. I do not complain. It is all I know. This beautiful shrine is as much of a home as I have known for many years. It is a prison, and yet it has felt like home. Is it strange that I should think of it that way?’

I shook my head.

Again she paused, thinking ahead.

‘But lately-I do not feel safe, even here.’

‘Why?’

‘For many reasons! Partly, perhaps, because I sense something changing in the atmosphere. This palace is a very restrained, highly disciplined world. So when things change, I notice at once: objects that are not where they ought to be, or that appear out of nowhere. Things that could mean nothing, and yet seen another way might imply something mysterious, something…And then, today…’

She ran out of words. Shrugged. I waited for more.

‘You mean the events at the festival? The blood…?’

She shook her head. ‘No. Something different.’

‘Can you show me?’

‘Yes. But first, there is something more I must tell you.’

She drew me down on to a long bench in the shadows, and spoke in a more cautiously hushed voice, like a conspirator.

‘What I am about to tell you is a secret known only to myself and a very few trusted men. You must give me your word you will keep silence. Words are powers, and silence too has its great power. Those powers are mine, to be respected and obeyed. If you do not, I will know it, and I will not spare your punishment.’

She looked at me gravely.

‘You have my word.’

She nodded, satisfied, and took a deep breath.

‘Tutankhamun will announce his coronation and his ascendancy to the kingship shortly. It would have happened today, after he had communed with the Gods. But that could not happen. Obviously. We were thwarted, on this occasion. But we will not be stopped. The future of the kingdom is at stake.’

She watched for my reaction.

‘He is already King,’ I commented, carefully.

‘But in name only, for Ay is Regent, and he holds all power, in reality. His government is the ruling authority of the kingdom. It remains invisible, and under that cloak he does as he wishes, while we are merely his puppets. So we must grasp power now. While there is still time.’

‘That will be very difficult. And very dangerous.’

‘Obviously. So now you understand better why I have called for you.’

I felt the shadows of the palace darkening around me with every word she spoke.

‘May I ask a question?’

She nodded.

‘Can you be sure Ay would not support him in this?’

Ankhesenamun suddenly looked as lonely as any woman I had ever seen. It was as if the door into her heart had been blown open by a gust of wind. In that moment, I knew there was no way back from this strange night, or escape from the dismal labyrinth of this palace.

‘He would destroy us both if he knew.’

There was both determination and fear in her eyes.

‘And can you be certain he does not know?’

‘I cannot be certain of it,’ she said. ‘But he has shown no sign. He treats the King with contempt, and maintains him in a dependent childhood he should have outgrown. His authority depends upon our subservience. But he has made the most dangerous assumption: he underestimates us. He underestimates me . But I will not endure it any longer. We are the children of our father. I am my mother’s daughter. I have her inside me, calling to me, encouraging me, persuading me against my fear. The time has come for us to reassert ourselves, and our dynasty. And I believe I am not alone in not wishing to live in a world ruled by a man of such cold heart.’

I needed to think carefully.

‘Ay is very powerful. He is also very clever and very ruthless. You will need a powerful and remarkable strategy to outwit him,’ I replied.

‘I have had a great deal of time to study him, and the stratagems of his mind. I have watched him, and yet I think he has not seen me. I am a woman, and therefore I am beneath his notice. I am almost invisible. And-I have had an idea.’