Nick Drake - Tutankhamun - The Book of Shadows

I watched as our temporary habitation was taken down again. All the golden furniture, the kitchen equipment and the caged animals were loaded on to carts. The goats were tethered together again. The cook’s hooks, knives and great cauldrons were loaded on to the mules. And finally the King’s tent was dismantled, the central pole and its golden ball taken down, and the long lengths of cloth folded and packed away. Suddenly it looked as if we had never been here at all, so transient was the impression we had made upon the vastness of the desert. All that was left was the chaos of our footprints and the brazier’s circle of black ash that was already drifting apart in the light northern breeze. I pressed the cinders down under my foot, and remembered the black circle on the box lid back in the Palace of Shadows. Of all the signs, it was the one that had haunted me most. I still did not know its meaning.

The sun was already well past its zenith when we set off deeper into the Red Land. The air shimmered across the desolate, barren landscape; we travelled slowly through a wide empty bed of shale and grit, surrounded by low bluffs, that might once have been a great river in the ancient past-for it is known that the bones of strange sea creatures were occasionally revealed by the wind and the changing sands. But now, as if by some catastrophe of time and the Gods, everything in this world had been transmuted to this grey and red rock and dust under the furnace of the sun. The great slow seas of sand, which I had heard of in tales from travellers, had to be much further to the west.

I rode beside Simut.

‘Perhaps fortune is at last gracing us,’ he said quietly-for every sound travelled crisply in the silent air.

‘All we have to do now is track the lion.’

‘And then we must do everything to help the King to his triumph,’ he replied.

‘He is determined to make the kill himself, but it is one thing to kill an ostrich among a herd of terrified animals, and another altogether to face and kill a desert lion,’ I said.

‘I agree. We will have to surround him with the best hunters in our team. Perhaps if they can bring the lion down, then he would be content to strike the final blow. It would still be his kill.’

‘I hope so.’

We rode on without speaking for a while.

‘He seems to have recovered well from the death of his monkey.’

‘If anything, it has strengthened his resolve.’

‘I never liked that pathetic creature. I would have wrung its neck long ago…’

We laughed quietly.

‘I pity its suffering, but it turned out to have a use, in the end.’

‘As a food-taster, and through its greed, like a creature in a moral fable, it came to an unfortunate end,’ he replied, with a rare, wry smile.

After slowly crossing the forsaken ocean of gravel and grey dust for hours, we came at last into a different, strange, wild landscape where the artistry of the wind had carved pillars of pale rock into fantastical shapes, lit now in yellows and oranges by the glory of the sunset. The brazier was quickly set, the tents resurrected, and soon the smells of cooking drifted richly in the pure air.

The King appeared at the entrance to his tent.

‘Come, Rahotep, let us walk together before it is dark.’

And so we strolled among the curious forms of the rocks, enjoying the cooling air.

‘This is another world,’ he said. ‘How many others, of perhaps still greater strangeness, lie even further away into the Red Land?’

‘Perhaps the world is much larger than we can know, lord. Perhaps the Red Land is not all there is of the land of the living. There are stories of lands of snow, and lands where all is green, always,’ I replied.

‘I would like to be the King who discovers and charts strange lands and new peoples. I dream of how the glory of our empire might one day go forth into unknown worlds, and into the dim future. Who knows but that what we make in this world might survive time itself! Why should it not? We are a great people of gold and power. The best of us is beautiful and true. I am glad we came, Rahotep. I was right to command it. Away from the palace, away from those walls and shadows, I feel alive again. I have not felt alive for so long. It is good. And fortune will smile upon me now. I can feel the goodness of the future, just ahead of me, calling to me to make it come to pass…’

‘That is a great calling, lord.’

‘It is. I feel it, in my heart. It is my destiny as King. The Gods are waiting for me to fulfil it.’

As we had talked, the brilliant stars, in all their glory and mystery, had appeared in the great ocean of the night. We both stood beneath them, looking up.

We set out in the chariots, properly armed and provisioned, as the sun was setting on the next day. The trackers had reconnoitred the terrain and found more signs. The lion’s territory seemed to centre on the low, shady bluffs at a little distance from the camp. No doubt they provided a haven for whatever life could survive in this harsh place. We carried with us a newly slaughtered goat’s carcass, to tempt him. We waited, our chariots arranged in a wide fan, watching from a careful distance as a tracker rode across the grey landscape with the dead animal, deposited it, and then retreated.

The tracker took up a position next to me.

‘He will be very hungry, for the prey is limited out here, and we have offered him a fine feast. I hope he will take the bait before it is dark.’

‘And if he does not?’

‘Then we must try again tomorrow. It would be unwise to approach him in the darkness.’

And so we waited silently as the sun continued its descent. Ahead of us the shadows of the bluffs lengthened imperceptibly, until, like a slowly rising tide, they reached the carcass, as if to consume it. The tracker shook his head.

‘We are too late,’ he whispered. ‘We can return tomorrow.’

But just then, he tensed like a cat.

‘Look. There he is…’

I peered into the darkening landscape, but saw nothing until at last I noticed the slightest movement of shadow against shadow. Everyone had noticed the tracker’s reaction, and a sudden jostling of movement passed down the line of men and horses. The tracker held up his hand for absolute silence. We waited intently. Then the shape moved forward, stealthily, slinking, as it approached the carcass. It raised its head to scan the terrain, as if wondering where this ready-made feast could have come from, and then, satisfied, settled down to feast.

‘What should we do?’ I whispered to the tracker.

He considered carefully.

‘It is too dark to hunt him now, for we would easily lose track of him. This terrain is difficult. But now we know he will accept our offerings, we can return tomorrow, and tempt him out earlier with more fresh meat. A young adult such as this one has a large appetite; he will not have fed well for a long time. And tomorrow we will be well prepared, and in better positions from which to surround him.’

Simut nodded in agreement. But suddenly, without warning and without support, the King’s chariot jolted forward, and began to gain speed across the rough ground. Everyone was taken entirely by surprise. I saw the lion raise its head, disturbed by the distant noise. Simut and I spurred our own horses, and set off in pursuit of the King. I looked again and saw the lion was now dragging the carcass away towards the cliffs, where we would never find him. I was gaining on the King’s chariot, and shouted at him to stop. He turned around, but gestured as if he could not, or would not, hear me. His face was alive with excitement. I shook my head wildly, but he merely grinned like a schoolboy, and turned away. The chariot wheels clattered alarmingly, and the axles knocked and complained as the wooden structure struggled with the demands of the rough terrain. I glanced up and for the briefest of moments I saw the lion standing and staring. But the King had some distance to cover, and the beast did not seem greatly alarmed.