Nick Drake - Tutankhamun - The Book of Shadows

The King’s temporary bedchamber was lit with oil lamps; they were set in the wall niches, and on the floor, and in even greater numbers around his bed, so that he appeared like a young god in a constellation of lights. The candles were lit to banish the darkness of the world around him, but they looked weak against such threatening, dangerous forces. Ankhesenamun was holding her husband’s hand, and talking quietly to him. I saw the intimacy between them, how she made him feel safe, and secure, and how she was the braver and the more powerful one of the pair. But I still could not imagine how such a delicate couple could, tomorrow, assume authority from demagogues and dictators of ambition such as Ay and Horemheb. However, I knew I would prefer Ankhesenamun’s rule to either of theirs. And I knew she was clever. They had underestimated her. She had watched and learned from their example, and perhaps too she had now learned some of the absolute ruthlessness she would need in order to survive in this labyrinth of monsters. They both looked up for a moment, and saw me framed in the doorway. I bowed my head. Tutankhamun, Lord of the Two Lands, stared at me coldly, then flicked his hand with a gesture of dismissal.

Pentu closed the door in my face.

I hurried to meet Khety in the quarter of the town where men go after their hard day’s work in the offices of the bureaucracies. It was long past our arranged meeting time; the only light in the ways and lanes came from the small windows of the houses where oil lamps had been lit. The narrow passageways were full of drunken men, bureaucrats and labourers, some hurrying silently, furtively; others in vociferous groups, calling and shouting to each other as they lurched from place to place. Girls with their breasts displayed, and slim, sly boys, and some who could have been either, threaded through, brushing against the men, and glancing back over their shoulders as they passed into shady doorways that led to the tiny curtained cubicles where they worked their trade. One of them accosted me.

‘I can teach you such pleasures as you cannot imagine,’ she offered, in a worn-out voice.

I found the low, anonymous doorway in a long mud-brick wall that ran off the main thoroughfare. Past the thick doorkeeper and his thick door, I went down the passageway. Usually these places are a warren of airless, low rooms, their ceilings besmirched with many nights of black tallow smoke, but this one was very different. I found myself in a series of rooms and courtyards. The quality of everything was luxurious: high-quality wall paintings, very good art, and the best tapestries hung on the walls. The place had the rich sheen of success; and it was thronged with fashionable, successful men, their acolytes and female attendants, drinking and talking-roaring with opinion, laughter and contempt over jugs of beer and goblets of wine, and plates piled with excellent food. Faces swam in and out of my vision: a painted woman in expensive robes braying like a mule, her eyes thrilled; an older, red-faced man with his mouth wide open like a baby screaming; and a young man’s tough, greasy, thin profile, hidden in a corner, not talking to anyone, but watching everything, waiting for his opportunity, a hyena at the feast.

On the walls were paintings of copulation: men and women, men and men, men and boys, women and women. Each figure wore a cartoon grin of ecstasy, sketched in a few lines of red and black. Inconceivably massive cocks jutted. Various penetrations occurred. I had seen such things circulated on confiscated satirical papyri, but not reproduced on a larger scale.

Khety was waiting for me. I ordered a jug of wine from the middle-aged servant whose blotched, pallid skin looked as if it had not seen sunlight for many years.

‘I’ve been drinking very, very slowly,’ he said, to remind me how late I was.

‘Top marks for self-discipline, Khety.’

We found a corner, and both turned our backs on the crowds, not wanting our presence to register more than it must-for no Medjay officer walks carelessly into a place like this. There were plenty of rich men, whose businesses were less than orthodox, who would frequent such a place, and perhaps take great pleasure in confronting law-keepers such as Khety and me, in a place where we could count on few friends.

The wine arrived. As I expected it was overpriced and underwhelming. I tried to adjust to the strange adjacency of the two worlds: the Malkata Palace with its silent stone corridors, and its elite characters in their hushed drama of power and betrayal, and this playground of noisy nightlife. I suppose the same things were going on in both places-the nightly demand of male desire, and the supply of satisfactions.

‘Any more leads?’ I said.

‘I’ve been asking around. It’s tough because these kids come from all over the kingdom now. Some of them are slaves or prisoners, while others are just desperate to escape and make their way to the golden streets of the city from whatever fly-infested nowhere they call home. Most come on the promises of a recruiter in their local area, but many are even sold by their own families. Babylonians, Assyrians, Nubians…if they’re lucky they end up in Thebes or Memphis.’

‘Or, if they’re unlucky, somewhere less romantic, a garrison town like Bubastis or Elephantine,’ I said. ‘They don’t last long anywhere. All they’ve got to offer is their beauty and their freshness. But once that’s passed…they’re only fit for the human junk-heap.’

I looked around, and saw in the young faces the damage caused by servicing all these demanding clients, night after night. Desperate, sunny faces smiling too widely, too deliberately, trying too hard to please; pretty girls and pretty boys like living dolls on the knees of the repulsive-looking men who could afford new flesh every week, or once a year. Everyone looked exaggerated and wild. A young woman with ruined eyes walked past us; her nose had been cut off. She looked as if she moved on invisible strings worked by an invisible puppet-master. She drifted away through the crowds.

‘But interestingly, many of them also carry illicit drugs across the borders or downriver as part of the deal. It’s a cheap delivery method. Everyone knows it happens, and individually the amounts are too small to bother with; and the border guards are bribed, or they’ll take a quick fuck as a backhander, and even when the odd few are caught for show, the profit far outweighs the loss.’

‘What a beautiful world this is,’ I said.

Khety chuckled.

‘It could do with some improvement.’

‘It’s getting worse,’ I said gloomily.

‘You always say that. You wouldn’t know what to say if something good actually happened,’ he replied, with his usual aggravating optimism. ‘You’re more miserable than Thoth, and he’s a dumb animal.’

‘Thoth is not miserable. Nor is he remotely as dumb as most of the two-legged creatures around here. He is thoughtful.’

I drank my wine.

‘Who owns this place?’

He shrugged.

‘Whoever owns most of this quarter of the city. Probably one of the big families, connected with the temples, who no doubt take a big percentage of the profits.’

I nodded. It was well known that the temples’ enormous wealth depended upon varied and very profitable business investments throughout the city and the nomes of the kingdom.

‘And who are we meeting?’

‘The manager. She’s a smart woman.’

‘I’m sure she has a heart of gold.’

We made our way through the braying crowds, past the blind musicians plucking at their instruments, despite the fact that no one was listening, and then slipped down a silent passageway lit by a few oil lamps.

Off this ran other passageways, with elegant curtains concealing spaces big enough for a comfortable mattress. Fat old men retreated into the cubicles to avoid us, and small girls and giggling boys slipped past like silly, ornamental fish. Despite the incense burning everywhere, the air was stale, tinged with human odours: sweat, tainted breath, stale feet and rank armpits. Somewhere someone was panting and groaning, in another cubicle a girl was sweet-talking and giggling, and from another a woman performed, low-pitched and ardent as a court singer. Further off I heard the splash of water, and laughter.