Paul Doherty: The Season of the Hyaena

Ay blinked and looked away. He was a mongoose of a man, but I was convinced he was not lying, nor was he alarmed by Pentju’s threats.

‘I am not frightened,’ Ay replied, his face now only a few inches from Pentju’s. ‘The only difference between you, Pentju, and the rest is that you have been honest.’

‘So why not kill us?’ I asked. ‘Why not now?’

Ay leaned back. ‘For the same reason I didn’t years ago. You have powerful friends. Meryre, Tutu and the rest deserved their fate, but Horemheb and the others would baulk at murder, at the illegal execution of two old comrades, former Children of the Kap.’

‘Secondly?’ I insisted. ‘There is a second reason?’

‘The Divine One himself, when in his right mind, would have objected, and thirdly,’ Ay coolly added, ‘I need you to protect him, to see if you can do something to bring his mind out of the darkness.’

‘Where is my son?’ Pentju demanded.

‘He is in a cave, isn’t he?’ I asked. ‘One of those secret ones you’ve quarried in the Valley of the Kings?’

‘To house the dead from the City of the Aten,’ Ay agreed, ‘as well as for eventualities such as this. You will be taken there, I assure you.’

Pentju put his face in his hands.

‘And now,’ Ay placed his hands together, ‘what shall we do with our Pharaoh, who has the body of a young man and, sometimes, the mind of a babbling infant? You must help him, Mahu, as much as possible.’

‘Why?’

‘To put it bluntly, my granddaughter, Ankhesenamun, must conceive a son by him before it is too late.’

‘Is he capable of that?’

‘Oh yes.’ Ay put a finger round his lips. ‘My granddaughter can conceive.’

‘Or is she your daughter?’ Pentju taunted.

‘My granddaughter,’ Ay replied evenly.

‘And if Tutankhamun doesn’t beget an heir?’ I asked. ‘If he dies childless, where will the Kingdom of the Two Lands go?’

I shall never forget Ay’s reply, in that chamber on that darkest night, for it brought to an end a period of my life. At first he didn’t reply, but just sat, head bowed.

‘So?’ I repeated the question. ‘To whom would Egypt go?’

‘Why, Mahu, Baboon of the South, Egypt will go to the strongest.’

Metut ent Maat

(Ancient Egyptian for ‘Words of Truth’)