Read Online Tutankhamun: The Book of Shadows by Nick Drake - Free Book Online Page B

for its hostile desecration.’
    â€˜Someone malicious has access to the royal quarters. They must bediscovered. But we need more than that: I want you also to attend my husband and me as our–private protector. Our guardian. Someone to watch over us. Someone unseen by others…’
    â€˜You have the Palace Guard,’ I said.
    â€˜I cannot trust the Palace Guard.’
    Each sentence of this conversation felt as if it was leading me deeper and deeper into a trap.
    â€˜I am one man.’
    â€˜You are the only man. And that is why I have called for you.’
    Now the last of the doors that might still have led away from here and back to my own chosen life closed silently.
    â€˜And what is your answer?’
    Many answers jostled in my mind.
    â€˜It will be an honour for me to fulfil the promise I made to your mother,’ I replied eventually. My heart was knotted tight at the consequence of these few words.
    She smiled with relief.
    â€˜But at the same time, I can’t abandon my family…’
    â€˜Perhaps that is all to the good. This must remain a secret between us. So you should carry on normally, and then—’
    â€˜But Ay knows me. Others will know of me. I cannot be here in secret. It would make my task impossible. You should simply say you are employing me, in addition to the Palace Guard, because of the threats you have received. Say I am independently assessing the internal security arrangements.’
    She glanced at Khay, who considered the options, and then nodded once.
    â€˜We accept this,’ she said.
    The thought of the double life ahead made me anxious. And, I had to confess, excited. I had promised Tanefert I would not forsake the family. But I reasoned I would not be breaking that vow, for I would not need to leave the city to pursue this mystery. And there was little enough work for me at the Medjay headquarters, under Nebamun’s thumb. I wondered why I was persuading myself.
    Khay was making the kind of noises that indicated it was time for us to depart. We offered our formal farewells. Ankhesenamun held my hands between her own, as if she wished to seal there the secret things that we had spoken about.
    â€˜Thank you,’ she said, her eyes brimming with accomplished sincerity. And then she smiled, more openly and warmly this time, and instantly I glimpsed her mother’s face; not the beautiful public mask, but the warm, living woman.
    And then the great double doors were silently opened behind us, and we retreated, backwards, bowing, until the doors closed again and we found ourselves in that endless, hushed corridor, with its many identical doors, like a scene from a nightmare.
    Â 
    I needed to piss, and I wanted to see whether the rumour about the water supply was true. Khay took me down a side corridor. ‘Third doorway on the left.’ He sniffed. ‘I will await you before the Queen’s chamber doors.’ He turned away.
    I entered. The space was long and narrow with a stone floor on which were painted pools of water, with gold fishes swimming. A lattice drew in the cool scents of the night. A few tapers swayed in the breeze of my appearance. I did what was necessary. It sounded too loud, in the awful, almost religious, hush. I felt as if I were pissing in a temple. Then I washed my hands in the basin, pouring water from the jug. No miracles of plumbing here. I was drying my hands, when I sensed something–a prickle of the hairs on my neck, a blur of something across the polished surface of the copper mirror–and in an instant I turned.
    The woman watched me knowingly, her clever eyes shining in the dim light, her black hair tied severely behind her head, her face angled and strangely gaunt, her robes like a dress of shadows.
    â€˜Do you know me?’ she said, low and quiet.
    â€˜Should I?’
    She shook her head, disappointed.
    â€˜I came to tell you my name.’
    â€˜In the toilet ?’
    â€˜I