Nick Drake - Tutankhamun - The Book of Shadows

‘I bring you Rahotep, Seeker of Mysteries. He insisted on meeting you.’

She looked down her nose at him, and giggled.

‘What a cold dish he is. I wouldn’t feed him to a cat…but you .’

She looked me directly in the eye.

I ignored her blatant cue. She cackled suddenly, her head thrown back like a melodramatic actor.

I continued to hold her gaze.

‘Oh. I see; the strong and silent type. Perfect .’

She tried to gaze back like a courtesan, but she faltered, giggled, and suddenly collapsed into hysterics.

Someone had supplied her recently enough. She was still in the happy phase. Soon that would fade, and she would be in the clutches of her grim need again. I felt excitement rising in my chest, like a wonderful panic, for here was the missing connection. But would she be capable of doing the things I thought she had done? Could she have placed the stone carving, the box containing the mask of animal remains, and the doll? She resided within the royal quarters, but her freedom of movement seemed no greater than that of an animal within a cage. Her rooms were sealed from the outside. Someone was controlling her; but who? Not her husband, at least not directly, because he was far away. It had to be someone who had regular access to the palace, and in particular to these chambers. Also, it had to be someone who could supply her. The answer was so tantalizing. Was whoever had killed the young people, also managing the Princess? One question at a time, and I might be able to prove the connection, slowly, carefully, precisely.

‘Who supplies you?’ I said.

‘With what?’ she said, her eyes glittering.

‘With the opium poppy.’

Khay was on his feet instantly.

‘This is an appalling breach of protocol, and a disgusting accusation.’

‘Sit down and shut up!’

He was deeply affronted.

‘You have your own addictions,’ I added, purely for my own vindictive pleasure. ‘Addiction to wine is no different to what she’s doing. You can’t live without it, and neither can she. What’s the difference?’

He huffed but found he had no reply to that.

‘That’s true,’ she said, quietly. ‘It’s all there is. I tried to refuse it. But in the end, life without it is disappointing. It’s just so boring. So- nothing .’

‘And yet here you are, living for it. And you look like you’re dead already.’

She nodded, sadly.

‘But when you have it inside you, everything feels like bliss .’

She seemed as far from a state of bliss as a woman in the jaws of a crocodile.

‘Who brings it to you?’ I asked.

She smiled enigmatically and approached me.

‘You’d like to know that, wouldn’t you? I can see right through you. You’re as desperate as I am. You need your answers, just like I need my drug. You know how it feels …’

She slid her cold hand down inside my robe. It did nothing for me, so I withdrew it, and returned it to its owner.

She rubbed her wrist, tenderly.

‘I’m not going to tell you anything now,’ she said, like a petulant child.

‘I’ll go, then,’ I said, and stood up.

‘No, don’t,’ she called out. ‘Don’t be cruel. Don’t abandon a poor girl.’

She mewed like a cat again.

I turned back.

‘I’ll stay with you for a little while. But only if you talk to me.’

She twisted her hips from side to side, like a seductive child. It was pathetic in a middle-aged woman. Then she patted the bench, and so I sat again.

‘Ask me anything.’

‘Just tell me who supplies the drug.’

‘No one.’

She cackled again, suddenly.

‘This is tiresome,’ I said.

‘It’s a little, private joke between him and I. He tells me he is no one. But he does not know I laugh because I see he has an empty face.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know what I mean. Somehow his soul is missing. He is a hollow man.’

‘And how old is he? And how tall?’

‘He is middle-aged. He is your height.’

I looked at her. I sensed a new thread of connection running in my brain.

‘What is his name?’

‘He has no name. I call him “the Physician.”’

The Physician .

‘Tell me about his voice.’

‘It is not loud, but it is not too quiet. Not young, but not old. Not gentle, but not violent, either. It is a calm voice. There is a strange kindness in it, sometimes. A kind of gentleness.’

‘What about his hair?’

‘Grey. All grey,’ she sang.

‘And his eyes?’

‘Oh, his eyes. They are grey, too, or sometimes blue, or sometimes both. They are the only beautiful thing about him,’ she said.

‘What is beautiful about them?’

‘They see things others cannot see.’

I pondered that.

‘Tell me about the messages.’

‘No, I can’t,’ she said. ‘He would be angry with me. He will not visit me again if I betray the messages.’

I glanced at Khay, who was listening with amazement.

‘And when does he come?’

‘I never know. I have to wait. It is terrible, when I haven’t seen him for days and days.’

‘You fall ill?’

She nodded, pathetically, her chin drooping.

‘And then he arrives, and leaves me his gifts, and all is well again.’

‘When he leaves you these messages, they instruct you to do things for him. Am I right?’ I asked.

She nodded, reluctantly.

‘To take things, and leave them in certain places?’

She paused, nodded again, and leaned towards me, whispering noisily.

‘He allows me to walk the corridors and on occasion the gardens when no one is present. Usually it is night. I am locked up here for days and days. I go crazy with boredom. I get desperate to see the light, to see life . But he is very strict, and I have to return quickly, or he will not give me what I need; and he always reminds me I have to be very careful never to be seen, because then everyone would be so furious and there would be no more gifts…’

She looked at me, her eyes wide and innocent now.

‘Who would be angry?’

‘ They would.’

‘Your family? Your husband?’

She nodded, miserably.

‘ They treat me like an animal ,’ she hissed.

‘Does no one else ever release you, and allow you some liberty?’

She hesitated for a moment, and glanced at me before she shook her head. So someone was taking pity on her. I thought I knew who that might be.

I watched her as she shifted nervously, her fingers endlessly unpicking an invisible tangle of thread.

‘So what is happening out in the wide world?’ she asked, as if she had suddenly remembered it was still there.

‘Nothing has changed,’ said Khay. ‘Everything remains the same.’

She looked at me.

‘I know he lies,’ she said, quietly.

‘I can’t tell you anything,’ I said.

‘I have a world in here.’ She tapped the side of her head lightly, as if it were a toy. ‘I have lived in it for a very long time now. My world is beautiful, and the children are happy, and people dance in the streets. Life is a party. No one grows old, and tears are unknown. There are flowers everywhere, and colours, and wonderful things. And love grows like fruit upon the vine.’

‘I suppose your husband is not in it, then.’

She looked up instantly, her eyes suddenly focused.

‘You have news of my husband? When did you see him?’

‘A few weeks ago, in Memphis.’

‘Memphis? What is he doing there? He has not seen me for so long. He has been away at the wars for years. That is what the Physician told me…’

She looked betrayed.

‘How does the Physician know about your husband?’ I asked.