City of the Dead

clung to him when they parted.
    ‘Have the gods spoken to you?’ He asked her softly, one eye on the body servants who stood near.
    ‘No.’
    ‘No warning?’
    ‘If there had been, I would tell you. You would not go.’
    ‘To whom have you prayed?’
    ‘To Hathor and Onuris.’To the Suckler of the King and the Huntsman. The same gods as the king had chosen. It was a good omen. Tutankhamun smiled, kissed his wife again, on the nose, eyes, ears and lips, and touched the lower gates of her body lightly with his hand.
    ‘May they keep you,’ he said.
    ‘May they keep you indeed,’ she returned, looking at him sadly.

    As soon as he was away from her he felt relieved, the burden of her reproach lifted by her absence. The warm wind on his face as he rode into the desert rushed through his being and cleansed his heart. Under Sherybin’s control, the excited horses skimmed across the firm sand, and the king was free to scan the twilight landscape as it swept by like the sea.
    They pitched camp at dusk, gathering round the fire to eat as the first watch was set. The tents were frail and vulnerable in the vastness of the desert, their linen sides flapping in a rough wind that eddied round, changing direction abruptly, whipping sand into their faces, and making shadows leap. In the silence that followed it, Tutankhamun listened hopefully for lions, but nothing came out of the darkness except the lonely bark of a distant jackal. Nehesy and Sherybin were men of his age, Sherybin younger, and he rejoiced in their company. If only the quarry were more exciting! He insisted that they retire before he did, and remained by the fire as it died, as alone as he ever would be, he thought, with only a guard and a body servant for company. He opened his heart to the great emptiness around him and let it take possession of him.
    The following day the trackers, who had left before dawn to lope silently into the gloom to the east, returned to report a small herd of ibex — fifteen to twenty — in a cluster of low hills - no more than large rocks — half an hour’s ride ahead. The four chariots of the hunting group were harnessed to their teams and set off - the king and Sherybin in the lead, with Nehesy and his charioteer off to the right, and the two others riding to the left and rear. They were well spread out, to confuse the focus of their prey. Tutankhamun weighed a medium spear in his hand and suppressed the thought of lions.
    Soon enough the rocks came into view, looming grey against the yellow of the desert. Years ago a small gold mine had been worked here, but now all that remained of it was a cave-like opening among the rocks, and the broken remains of water jars. They were not far off the main route from the Southern Capital to the port on the Eastern Sea from where the swift coasters departed for Punt, but the desolation of the desert covered them like a pall. The chariots fanned out and, the horses slowed to a trot, rode round the rocks at a distance. From the jagged grey shapes, softer ones began to detach themselves as the large, brown-grey animals raised their heads with the great swept-back horns to regard this intrusion with curiosity and caution.
    The king exchanged his spear for a bow and arrow. Nodding to Sherybin, he steadied himself in the footstrap on the floor of the chariot and drew on his archer’s glove.

    The hunt lasted all morning, but it was not a success. Three animals lay drawn up on the sand, but they were elderly, only having fallen prey to the archers because they had lost their nimbleness. There was no honour in their deaths, and the king had called off the pursuit in disgust. This was not the way to celebrate the arrival of his child. He returned moodily to camp. His humour was not improved by news from Sherybin that his chariot had a damaged axle, and that a new one would have to be brought from the capital; but he gave his charioteer permission to absent himself from the hunt for the second day in order to fetch the spare part. On that day he hunted with Nehesy, but the only living thing they saw were golden desert rats which popped up from their holes to gawp at them.
    On the last day the king was awakened early by an excited Sherybin.
    ‘The trackers have brought news,’ said the charioteer, scarcely able to contain his enthusiasm.
    ‘Of what?’ The king squinted past him at the sky outside the tent. Could the trackers be back already?
    ‘Wild cattle,’ Sherybin told him in a