City of the Dead

horses from the north. They responded to the slightest touch, and the chariot was manoeuvrable enough to pursue the swiftest prey. Even the long spotted cat, the fastest animal, could not escape him.
    In his dream he had been hunting the great birds, which had thundered ahead of him on their powerful legs, running in desperation and darting their idiotic heads on long naked necks hither and thither in panic. He wanted to make two kills, to collect enough black body feathers and white tail feathers for the golden flywhisks he had commissioned for the commemoration day of his queen’s coming-forth. It was a point of honour to collect the feathers himself, and he was an experienced hunter. After the enforced inactivity of the court, hunting was his chief joy.
    Now, he flew across the Western Desert near Kharga, it seemed; far, far out among the dunes and nowhere near his usual hunting grounds. The big black-and-white birds galloped directly ahead of the chariot, making half-hearted feints to right and left, but unable to manoeuvre their bulk out of harm’s way. All he had to do was select his target and bring it down with his first harpoon. Then, a second target with the second weapon, and it would be over. They would return to the kills and his charioteer would take what they needed from the bodies, leaving the rest for the children of Nekhbet.
    In his dream he wanted to pass the reins of the chariot over, to grasp the harpoon. It was only then that he realised he was alone. And now his horses were slowing, tiring, and the birds were making distance between them, running on into the desert in their flailing, grotesque way, until they became shimmering untidy specks in the heat, melting into the air, finally disappearing altogether, leaving him alone. The chariot came to a halt, and his beautiful dun horses, Hyksos-trained, so he had been told, sank under the sand. The chariot tilted forward on to its shaft and he had to grasp the side to steady himself.
    The jolt had awakened him. At first he was relieved that it had been a dream, for it had seemed real enough, and his last dreaming thoughts had been despairing ones of leaving the empire without an heir to the mercy of Horemheb. Then he recognised where he was, heard his wife’s gentle breathing, and knew, with a stab of irritation of which he felt ashamed, that before another minute had elapsed she would sense him awake and come back from sleep herself.
    He looked at his Great Wife briefly, the slender profile of her body outlined by the moon in the darkness, and sent out one more prayer to Min to flood her birth-cave with the fertile silt in which people grow. Then he lay back, adjusting his headrest as quietly as he could, and listened to the sound of Horemheb’s celebration. It seemed like months, not hours, since they had left the party, gracing only its beginning with the royal presence.
    He continued to lie awake until the sounds of carousal had died away, to be replaced soon after by the muted shuffling and suppressed coughing of the palace servants as they rose, lit fires for cooking, fetched water, milk, beans and flour for the first meal, and brought the palace to life. Soon, the body servants would come to awaken them and bathe them, and the chief steward would arrive with the private secretary, both to receive and give the domestic and public orders for the day. To be so shackled to duty without the reward of power was beginning to kill the king’s Ka. Behind all the other noises came the call of egrets by the river. Tutankhamun’s strained eyes continued to stare into the gathering day. Lightheaded, hungover from lack of sleep, his mouth dry, he sat inside himself and tried to listen to what his heart would tell him.
    ‘Be a prisoner no longer. The only way out is to kill the jailer.’
    He had heard the words before, many times. He wondered how long it would be before he stopped listening and started to act. Well, he had made a start, of sorts, and he knew that he could not spend the rest of his life waking into agony. Despite himself, he found himself thinking of the old king, Akhenaten.
    How valuable his advice would be be now! Tutankhamun tried to remember that remote, fatherly, fragile creature, but the edges of his memory were blurred and he could conjure up a body but no face. An impression of gentleness and comfort remained.
    The king swung his feet off the bed and stood in one lithe movement, making his head spin. He heard body servants