Nick Drake - Nefertiti

I moved up to the torso and was about to begin to examine the clothing when the door slammed open and to my alarm Akhenaten himself entered. Khety, Tjenry and I dropped to the floor, faces down, by the table. I heard him move across the room and approach the body. This was a disaster. I still had none of the clues, those tiny shards of hope I needed in order to prove my instinct true. I desperately needed to examine the body and confirm my findings before informing Akhenaten. Now it must look as if I was working behind his back, to cover up the murder and the body of the Queen, and my own incompetence and failure. I swore at myself, wishing I had never come, never left Thebes. But here I was, trapped by my own ambition and curiosity.

I quickly glanced up. He was standing beside the body, his hands slowly moving across it, his eyes wide in rapt concentration, breathing with deep, uneven gasps as if in pain, as if trying to sense the spirit still hovering, as if he would try to raise her from the dead. He seemed mesmerized by the catastrophe of her face, as if he had never thought beauty were skin deep, as if he could not believe his Queen was mortal. It seemed to me in that moment that he loved her.

I thought: how ironic we should meet our fates in an embalmers’ workshop. All we needed to do was step quietly into a coffin, close the lid, and wait for death.

Finally he seemed able to speak. ‘Who did this?’

I had to say it. ‘Lord, I do not know.’

He nodded sympathetically, as if I were a child in school who had failed to answer a simple question. He continued with a quietness that was more menacing than any shout. ‘Did you hope to keep this secret from me until you had worked out a story to defend your failure to answer this simple question?’

‘No, Lord.’

‘Do not disagree with me.’

‘It is the question I am trying to answer, Lord. It is not a simple question. And forgive me for saying so at this time, but there is another question.’

His glare was intense with contempt. ‘What other question could there be now? She is dead!’

‘The question is whether this is indeed the Queen.’

There followed a nasty silence. Akhenaten’s voice, when he spoke, was a marvel of restrained sarcasm. ‘These are her clothes. Her hair. Her jewellery. Her scent is still on the body.’

It was time to grasp the slender reed of chance.

‘But appearances, Lord, may be deceptive.’

He turned to look at me, his face suddenly hungry with hope. ‘That is the first interesting thing you have said. Speak.’

‘We are all infinitely varied in terms of bodily shapes and colours and manners, but we are sometimes wrong when we think we know someone. How often does one glimpse a figure across a busy street and cry out to the school friend we have not seen for many years, only to find it is not he but someone in whom his features have been rearranged? Or the sudden flash of the eyes of a girl we once loved in the passing face of a stranger?’

‘What are you saying?’

‘I am saying this is a woman who looks like the Queen, who has her height and her hair, the tones of her skin, her clothing. But without the face, the mirror where we read our knowledge of each other, only one who knew her deeply-intimately-can confirm this.’

‘I see.’

I looked down, careful not to risk damaging this delicate moment.

‘With permission, there is a way, Lord, to confirm the identification of this body as the Queen’s. But it requires personal knowledge. Private knowledge.’

He considered what I was implying. ‘If you are wrong, I will do to you what was done to her. I will strip you naked, I will cut out your tongue so you cannot call for death, I will peel off your skin, strip by strip, I will hammer your face to a pulp, and then I will have you staked out in the desert where I will watch your slow agony as the flies and the sun put you to your death.’

What could I say? I looked him in the eye, then bowed my head in acquiescence.

‘Turn away. Face the wall.’

We did so. He was opening her clothing, laying her bare. I heard the faintest shower of grains of sand cascading to the floor. Then silence. Then the sound of a jar shattering against a wall. Khety jumped. The scent of palm wine spread out quickly across the room. The next moment would decide the path of my destiny.

‘This is a great deception.’

Hope leaped up in my heart.

‘Your task is not yet done. It is hardly begun. And there is little time. Call upon what you need. Find her.’ There was a look of exultation on his face, not just relief. ‘This body is rubbish. Dispose of it.’ And with that he swept from the room.

Khety, Tjenry and I looked at each other and stood up. Tjenry put his hand to his damp brow. ‘This is too much excitement.’ He laughed a little, embarrassed by his fear.

‘How did you know that?’ said Khety, gazing at the body.

I shrugged. I did not say how little I had had to go on in gambling our lives. The body before us was beautiful, perfect even. What detail had redeemed us and proved my strange hunch right? Then I saw a little white scar like a star in daylight on the belly, where a mole, perhaps, had been removed. That was all it had taken to save us for another day. But then the questions crowded into my head. Why had someone murdered a woman who looked exactly like the Queen? Why set such a sophisticated false lead? And where was Nefertiti herself?

Out of habit, I checked through the folds of the robes. Inside, near the heart, my fingers closed on a small object. I drew it out and found in my hand an ancient amulet, worked in gold and decorated in lapis. It was a scarab. The dung beetle, symbol of regeneration, whose offspring appeared as if from nowhere in the mud. The scarab that every day pushes the sun back into the light from its night in the Otherworld. Unusually the underside was inscribed not with the name of the owner, but with three signs: Ra, the sun, a circle with a dot at its centre, then ‘t’, and then the hieroglyph of a sitting woman beside it. If I read it correctly it said: Raet. The female Ra.

I slipped the amulet into my pocket. It felt like a clue, or a sign-indeed the only one I had, apart from this faceless girl whose appalling death had in the end saved my own life. If only I could understand what was in front of me. I turned to look again at the body on the table.

‘Right, here are the key questions. Who is she? Why does she look so like the Queen? Why is she wearing the Queen’s clothing? And why has she been mutilated in such a desperate way?’

Khety and Tjenry nodded, sagely.

‘Who makes all the images of the Queen? All those strange statues?’

‘Thutmosis,’ said Khety. ‘His workshops are in the south suburb.’

‘Good. I want to interview him.’

‘Also, there is a reception this evening to honour the first of the arriving dignitaries for the Festival.’

‘Then we should attend. I hate parties, but it might be important.’

I ordered Tjenry to remain with the body and organize security. ‘Khety will relieve you later tonight.’ He gave me a jaunty salute.

Khety and I made our way out to the embarrassing, cranky chariot. Over the jarring argument of metal and stone I said, ‘Tell me more about this artist.’

‘He is famous. Not like the other image-makers. Everyone knows him. And he’s very rich.’ He gave me a significant look.

‘And how do you find his work?’

Khety paused. ‘I think it’s very…modern.’

‘It sounds like you think that’s a bad thing.’

‘Oh no, it’s very impressive. It’s just…he shows everything. People as they are, not how they ought to be.’

‘Isn’t that better? Truer?’

‘I suppose so.’