James Patterson: The Murder of King Tut

“Starting tomorrow, Aye,” she told him, “ Egypt will be changed forever. Mark my words.”

He had no idea what she was talking about. The only thing that mattered was the beating of his heart and the way his name had sounded in her mouth.

“And Aye?”

“Yes, my queen?”

“If I ever see you looking at me that way again, I will feed your heart to the crocodiles.”

Amarna

1345 BC

ONLY IN THE ANCIENT WORLD was such a thing possible-such a miracle in architecture. In just two years, the city of Amarna was complete. Aye had been in charge of the site, and now he sent word to the pharaoh. He figured he had three weeks, maybe four, until Akhenaten and his host of minions arrived.

But he had underestimated the earnestness of his king’s desire to flee Thebes.

A week after his message was received, Aye was sipping ale on the terrace of the new royal palace. He was bored and lonely. His wife was still in Thebes. Even worse, so were his harem girls.

He gazed out at the Nile, marveling at the view. It truly was a gorgeous afternoon. The sky was a clear blue, and the heat tolerable if he stayed in the shade.

Then the royal vizier saw a sight so shocking that he nearly dropped his ceramic mug.

Cruising up the Nile was an armada of ships. Dozens. No, make that hundreds of vessels. Their great trapezoidal sails were visible from miles away. Aye could see thousands of citizens from Thebes lining the decks, ready to start their new lives in Amarna.

And on the prow of the largest barge, to see firsthand all that he’d created, stood Akhenaten. The stunning Nefertiti and their three coquettish daughters were at his side.

Akhenaten raised the royal standard in triumph, but Aye was focusing on Nefertiti and those three girls.

No boys. Just girls.

“I’ll kill him,” Aye said in a flash of inspiration. Of course. It was the perfect solution.

Magnificent as she was, Nefertiti had not yet borne the pharaoh an heir. And with no male heir, there was no clear succession. If the pharaoh died-suddenly-there was no one to stop Aye from declaring himself pharaoh.

No one but Nefertiti, the queen bee.

“I’ll deal with her when the time comes,” Aye mumbled, already planning his crime. But he couldn’t afford to make a mistake. To kill the pharaoh and go undetected would require a perfect murder. He would have to be patient, choosing just the right moment and the right means of execution.

Aye pursed his lips. If nothing else, he was patient. The plan had been revealed to him in an instant, every detail and twist, but it would take some time to execute.

“Someday I will be the pharaoh,” he said boldly.

Amarna

1892

THIS WAS AMAZING- Amarna!

Howard Carter carefully studied the lay of the land to make sure he had found just the right spot. What he wanted was a place with a view that was also close to the tombs. He had already examined the sand for drainage lines so that he wouldn’t accidentally be swept away by a torrential downpour or the Nile when it over-flowed its banks.

Now, at last, he settled on a spot. This was it.

Turning his head slowly in either direction to survey the horizon, he nodded to his small army of construction workers, who sprang into action-or at least moved as quickly as their somewhat relaxed approach to life and labor allowed.

Imagine-he was building a home here, a simple structure made of mud bricks like the ancient Egyptians used. For the first time in his life, Howard Carter was putting down roots, although shallow ones.

He would be laboring in Amarna, former home to Akhenaten and Nefertiti. The once grand, now ruined city was located at a broad bend in the Nile, on a low plateau fronted by a stunning array of cliffs. There was a shortage of housing in the newly rediscovered city, hence Carter’s need to build his own. It would not be just any home, however, but a practical domicile in which ancient Egyptians would have been comfortable. He had begun by purchasing a thousand mud bricks for just ten pennies.

It was January, the peak of the dig season.

Carter had left Beni Hasan-and Percy Newberry-for Amarna, thanks once again to the patronage of Lord Amherst. He would work there under veteran Flinders Petrie, making elaborate drawings of discoveries large and small.

Immediately on Carter’s arrival, Petrie had made it known that they would travel by foot at all times. Petrie, a frugal man, didn’t feel a need to purchase donkeys when walking was just as quick and far less expensive.

Carter also learned that he would be “cooking” for himself. Cooking was a euphemism for opening the tin cans that contained breakfast, lunch, and dinner on a Petrie dig site. Canned food was cheaper than purchasing local fare and hiring a cook.

Beyond that, canned food was more efficient. Flinders Petrie liked to work from eight in the morning until eight at night, each and every day. The less time spent on frivolities like cooking, the more time spent on excavation.

In addition, Carter received word that he was no longer just a sketch artist. Petrie had seen dozens of book-educated Englishmen come into the field, certain that their knowledge had prepared them to be excavators, and most had failed miserably.

Now, due to a shortage of excavators and an intuitive belief that the cocksure young Carter could be trained more easily than someone older and less ambitious, Petrie informed Carter that excavation was being added to his daily list of chores.

Surprisingly, the results thus far had been less than stellar. “Carter’s interest is entirely in painting and natural history,” Petrie had written in his journal on January 9, less than a week after Carter’s arrival. “He is of no use to me as an excavator.”

An early review-of the man who would make the most famous discovery ever in the Valley of the Kings.

Amarna

1345 BC

THE FIERCE AND BELLICOSE General Horemheb could not believe what he was hearing from this silly, useless pharaoh.

“We will not be waging war on our neighbors,” Akhenaten decreed, slouching in his throne.

The general should not have been cowed by the words of the pharaoh, but the intensity with which Akhenaten stared into his eyes was unsettling. Some men took power from privilege. Others took it from their position. And still others took it from physical prowess. The pharaoh pretended he possessed all three. This gave him a surety that Horemheb found disconcerting to say the least.

Horemheb. This statue is on display at New York ’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

So while Horemheb longed to topple the pharaoh’s misguided government with some great military takeover, he found himself listening to this most incredible statement delivered by a freakish weakling, and there was nothing he could do about it.

“But Pharaoh, if I may, we depend on war for many things: our wealth, our security, our status. This will mean the ruin of us. Your father-”

“I don’t want to hear about my father. My father is in his tomb. His ways and his gods are things of the past. Just as dead as he is.”

“But, sire, we are the most powerful nation in all directions. Certainly we must protect that.”

Things have changed for the worse since the move to Amarna, Horemheb wanted to shout. The country is going soft. The king never even leaves the palace. The great cities of Memphis and Thebes are in decline. We, as an Egyptian people, are in rapid decline.